Why Did Germany Increase The Amount Of Money In Ww1

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At the start of World War I in 1914, one American Dollar was worth 4.20 German Marks. All the major European currencies had similar values including the British Shilling, French Franc, and Italian Lira and they were all backed by gold. This generally meant that the currency is worth some fixed amount of gold, and the government can only issue up to the amount of gold they had. However, Germany moved away from the gold backed currency in 1914. They thought the war would be short, so they financed the war by borrowing the money, mostly in the form of government bonds. At the beginning of the war, Germany’s national debt was 5 billion Marks, and at the end it rose to 156 billion in just five years. Unfortunately, the majority of this debt was

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