The debt was not "crippling" and was quite payable without undue stress on the German economy.
The amount was much less per annum that the German government had been paying to support its military establishment.
Since the Treaty of Versailles had reduced the German military to a small fraction of its previous size, it was basically a matter of shifting expenses to reparation payments from munitions.
The reparations were payable in kind - in coal, timber, iron, etc. - so the program actually boosted employment.
What spurred the hyper-inflation is this: German Chancellor Cuno deliberately failed to deliver timber and coal to France in a timely fashion because his government was frustrated by the cavalier attitude shown by the French toward Germany.
Rather than negotiate with Germany, French Prime Minister Poincare declared this maneuver a full default and invoked the Treaty to send in an occupying French force into Germany's Ruhr region.
French industry had become dependent upon German deliveries and Germany knew this.
Humiliated by the French occupation and the failure of the other powers to convince France to negotiate, the German central bank began to print money for payment of debt rather than send commodities, in a deliberate policy of trying to slow down French industrial production and impair France's economy.
It spiraled out of control from there.
I’d never heard this aspect and very interesting to read. Thank you. I wish real economics were taught when I was in school, class of 89. I had a wacko socialist economics teacher that despised RR and supply side economics. Never mind just about everyone in my little town was doing better than they were a few years ealier.
“Since the Treaty of Versailles had reduced the German military to a small fraction of its previous size, it was basically a matter of shifting expenses to reparation payments from munitions.”
Kinda hard to have that same pre-war economy when the Royal Navy maintained the starvation blockade, LONG after the war had ended.
Interesting hypothetical construct.It sounds like "demand side" economics.
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