Kurt Wolff on what runaway inflation is

    Publisher Kurt Wolff tells what it was like to live in Germany in 1923 with runaway inflation:

I wish I could give people today an inkling of what five Swiss francs meant in the Germany of 1923, when a street car ride or postage stamp cost 200 million marks, and when employees were paid their salary daily, so they could spend it the same day for purchases that would be unaffordable the day after. Those were the times in which the value of the dollar climbed from 550,000 marks to 600 million marks, then 1 billion and 1 trillion. . . . (Quoted from Kurt Wolff: A portrait in essays and letters, The University of Chicago Press, 1965.)
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    For a bit about Kurt Wolff’s life, click here.