The Period of Inflation, 1919–1923

The years after the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty on 28 June and the adoption of the Weimar Constitution on 11 August 1919 were dominated by inflation, which culminated in hyperinflation in 1923 and resulted in a currency reform. The republic mastered severe political crises such as the Kapp putsch in 1920, upheavals, and hyperinflation. At the same time, political life remained almost permanently in post-revolutionary crisis mode, suffering from both internal and external uncertainties, including reparations, which played a major role. Between 1919 and 1923, the government changed eight times. In particular, the year 1923 was marked by economic, political, and social states of emergency. After the political revolution in November 1918, inflation proved to be a revolution of a different kind, which contemporaries saw as crisis of the social order, but also as the expression of destructive modernity.