Comment by panick21_

This is a bad article. The expert it quotes are all wrong in important ways. Mises who wrote at the time when lot of information wasn't actually available and is simply factually wrong.

Adam Fergusson is a controversial right wing economists. And the claim that its 'more a psychological event than a purely monetary event' can be made about many things. One could argue that an earthquake or anything else is 'more psychological'.

Factually speaking, its simply a monetary event. It doesn't matter what when and where, if you print money to the extend Wiemar did your gone get hyperinflation. Had France, Britain or the US done the same, it would have had the same effect.

Carl Melchior was a member of the German elite who had a completely wrong understanding of economics and his words should not be just accepted.

> made by huge German exports and these exports will ruin the trade in England and America

This is a fundamentally flawed statement. This is German elites still thinking in Zero-Sum terms. The idea that Britain and the US could never accept German as an exporting trading partner, is just false. And its also false that debt can only be paid back if you are a massive exporter.

Every modern economist who looks at this, concludes that Germany could have paid back the debt just fine. Its simply that the German elites didn't want to pay it. That the simple reality.

Hyperinflation happened because German elites preferred hyperinflation, economic chaos to paying back the debt.