Paper and Iron
Hamburg Business and German Politics in the Era of Inflation, 1897–1927

This study presents a challenge to the prevailing view that there was no alternative to the inflationary economic policies of Weimar Germany.

Niall Ferguson (Author)

9780521470162, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 April 1995

556 pages
23.5 x 15.6 x 3.5 cm, 0.925 kg

'… meticulously researched and closely argued … Ferguson performs some admirable detective work in reconstructing the emergence and transmission of a revisionist argument … a brilliant and evocative analysis …' Christopher Clark, The Times Literary Supplement

Few economic events have had a more profound or enduring impact than the German hyperinflation of 1923, still remembered popularly as a root cause of Hitler's rise to power. Yet many historians have argued that inflationary policies were, on balance, advantageous to post-1918 Germany, both boosting growth and helping to reduce reparations. The scholarly consensus is that there was no viable alternative to inflation. In Paper and Iron Niall Ferguson takes a different view. He argues that inflation was indeed an economic and political disaster, and further that there were alternative economic policies which could have stabilised the German currency in 1920. To explain why these were not adopted he points to long-term defects in the political institutions of the Reich which went back as far as the 1890s and which persisted beyond 1918. The book therefore reveals the Wilhelmine origins of Weimar's failure, as well as casting light on the origins of the Third Reich.

List of figures
Preface
List of abbreviations
Introduction
1. Golden years
2. The sinews of war
3. The political economy of revolution
4. Versailles and Hamburg
5. Relative stabilisation
6. The failure of 'fulfilment'
7. Dissolution and liquidation
8. The legacy of the inflation
Epilogue: Hitler's inflation
Appendix
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ]