Germany: Memories of a Nation   /     Money in Crisis

Description

Neil MacGregor examines the emergency money - Notgeld - created during World War One and its aftermath. Small denomination coins began to disappear because their metal was worth more than their face value. People hoarded them or melted them down. Paper notes replaced coins, but as cities produced their own money, there was also currency made from porcelain, linen, silk, leather, wood, coal, cotton and playing cards. He also focuses on the crisis of hyperinflation in the early 1920s. At its peak, prices doubled every three and a half days, and in 1923 a 500 million mark note might buy a loaf of bread. Producer Paul Kobrak.

Subtitle
Neil MacGregor on the emergency money created to replace metal coins, and hyperinflation.
Duration
839
Publishing date
2014-10-29 00:00
Link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04k6t1g
Contributors
  BBC Radio 4
author  
Enclosures
http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/5/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download/proto/http/vpid/p02qj57n.mp3
audio/mpeg