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Germany: Memories of a Nation

Documentaries

Factual: History

Neil MacGregor explores 600 years of Germany's complex and often challenging history.

Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, explores 600 years of Germany's complex and often challenging history using objects, art, landmarks and literature.

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Germany: Memories of a Nation: Money in Crisis

Money in Crisis

29/10/2014

BBC Radio 4 - Germany: Memories of a Nation, Money in Crisis

Neil MacGregor on the emergency money created to replace metal coins, and hyperinflation.

Neil MacGregor examines the emergency money created during World War I and its aftermath, when no metal was available, and considers the crisis of hyperinflation in the 1920s.

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.

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