Foreign News 1923: Germany Exit the Mark

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Exit the Mark

The exact moment of death is as difficult to establish with currencies as it is with persons. The German mark has long since been pronounced incurably sick, and its fever has risen beyond the ability of existing thermometers to measure it. The events of the week tend to the conclusion that its definite decease can be dated at mid-September, 1923.

In a single week, the amazing output of 389,000,000,000,000 of marks—or more than all outstanding marks put together—was seen. The discount rate of the Reichsbank stood at the unparalleled rate of 90%. Individual German States like Dantzig are seeking to establish new currencies of their own, and the Berlin government is frantically at work trying to invent some new gold-convertible currency for the nation.

Germany's rate of currency depreciation and her State deficits now far exceed those of Soviet Russia. In foreign exchange, rates for the mark are so vastly depreciated that they can be expressed only in incalculably large figures. In both London and New York prominent banks have refused to quote, buy or sell the vanishing German currency any longer. It is likewise being stricken off the prominent European stock exchanges, where ordinarily foreign exchange is traded in actively.

The mark has been an extraordinary long time dying. Now, at last, it is apparently dead.

Notes

Berlin police began a search for foreign currency, principally dollars and pounds. On the Friedrichstrasse and the Kurfürstendamm, 27 raids took place and vast quantities of real money were confiscated. All persons received the privilege of calling at the police station after two days to receive the value of their money in marks.

The postage stamp was abolished in Germany, owing to the cost of printing being greater than the face value of the stamps. Hereafter German letters will bear a cancellation indicating that postage has been paid. The lightest letter from Germany costs, at the present rate of exchange, 200,000 marks to deliver in the U.S.

Grave disorders occurred at Berlin and in the Rhineland, caused by a serious food shortage. Riots and pillaging of shops occurred at many points and there were some clashes with police forces. Many people were killed and injured.

The animals in the Berlin Zoo were stated to be so hungry that they keep Berlin awake at night. The roaring of lions and tigers admixed with the "laughs" of hyenas and the howling of the wolves was reputed to have turned residential Berlin into a veritable jungle.

"Beer Hall Revolt"

Under cover of darkness General Erich von Ludendorff, flagitious, inscrutable, unrelenting, sallied forth into he streets of Munich, capital of Bavaria, accompanied by his faithful Austrian, Herr Adolf Hitler, to make a coup for the Hohenzollerns by way of celebrating Nov. 9, the fifth anniversary of the abdication of the then Kaiser.