The Downfall of Money: Germanys Hyperinflation And the Destruction of the Middle Class
“Because he wasn’t making a living from fiction, Hemingway was forced to earn his crust as a correspondent for the Toronto Star. On the paper’s behalf in mid-August he travelled with his wife to the eastern borders of France. They made the trip by the increasingly fashionable means of an aeroplane, half price for journalists.
He got an article for the Star out of that. He also got one out of a visit to the German border town of Kehl, just a walk across the bridge from the ancient city of Strasbo...urg, until recently German but now once more French. His task? To investigate for his paper’s readers back in Canada the bizarre phenomenon that was German inflation: There were no marks to be had in Strasburg, the mounting exchange has cleaned the bankers out days ago, so we changed some French money in the railway station at Kehl. For 10 francs I received 670 marks. Ten francs amounted to about 90 cents in Canadian money. That 90 cents lasted Mrs Hemingway and me for a day of heavy spending and at the end of the day we had 120 marks left!1 They bought some apples from a fruit stand, where ‘a very nice looking, white-bearded old gentleman’ watched them, then shyly asked how much their purchase had cost.MoreLess
He got an article for the Star out of that. He also got one out of a visit to the German border town of Kehl, just a walk across the bridge from the ancient city of Strasbo...urg, until recently German but now once more French. His task? To investigate for his paper’s readers back in Canada the bizarre phenomenon that was German inflation: There were no marks to be had in Strasburg, the mounting exchange has cleaned the bankers out days ago, so we changed some French money in the railway station at Kehl. For 10 francs I received 670 marks. Ten francs amounted to about 90 cents in Canadian money. That 90 cents lasted Mrs Hemingway and me for a day of heavy spending and at the end of the day we had 120 marks left!1 They bought some apples from a fruit stand, where ‘a very nice looking, white-bearded old gentleman’ watched them, then shyly asked how much their purchase had cost.MoreLess
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