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Reparations Since the First World War the normal term for war compensation, by which a state is obliged to remedy damage illicitly caused by it on the sovereign territory of an enemy. In contrast to the traditional practice whereby financial obligations were imposed by the victors in a war in the form of tribute, the concept of reparations introduced the new idea that a state must pay for the damage it has caused another state by an illegal act. The first use in a treaty of the concept réparation des dommages (compensation for damages), drawn from French civil law, was in the cease-f…

Hindenburg Program Economic and armaments program of the Supreme Army Command. Two days after taking over military leadership in Germany, on August 31, 1916, the Operations Branch of the Supreme Army Command (Hindenburg/Ludendorff ) presented the Prussian War Ministry with demands for the wholesale impressment of all economic resources for the war effort and a considerable expansion of armaments production. It was soon common parlance to speak of the “Hindenburg Program.” The armaments program was…

Inflation An increase in the money supply and a rise of the monetary demand that is not matched by a corresponding amount of goods. Until long after the end of the war, people were accustomed to speak of “rising prices” instead of inflation or devaluation. In current research, the “age of inflation” denotes the period extending from the war to the beginning of the currency stabilization in November 1923. It also alludes to the economic, political, social, and cultural changes that resulted from the currency devaluation as well as to the ways of coming to terms with inflation. The causes of w…

War Service Act ( Kriegsleistungsgesetz) The German law of June 13, 1873, regarding war services subsequently amended by numerous implementing provisions that regulated “obligations of federal territories to all services” with respect to the German Reich. This law dealt with work service, billeting, and services and supplies in kind to the military by communes, individuals, and commercial companies, including the railways, which were obliged to convey men and materials at defined prices. These services were to be called upon only …

Black Market (Contemporary German Schleichhandel) Term for illegal trading in rationed goods subject to a system of state control, by evading and infringing the statutes of wartime economies. The term black market, current in English since American Prohibition legislation of the 1920s, did not become established in German usage (as Schwarzmarkt) until the Second World War. Illegal markets in certain scarce goods arose in all the warring countries owing to national systems established at the beginning of the war to determine maximum prices ( Gesetze gegen Preistreiberei, Lois su…

Bibliographic entry in Chapter 4: United…

Bibliographic entry in Chapter 8: Expans…