Imperial Currencies after the Fall of Empires

The Conversion of the German Paper Mark and the Austro-Hungarian Crown at the End of the First World War

Bibliographic Data

ID9645335
AuthorsMáté Rigó (0000-0003-3831-5123, Yale-NUS College, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume53
Issue3
Pages533-563
Publication date2020-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCentral European History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0008-9389 • E-ISSN: 1569-1616
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0008938919001146
OpenAlexW3102930237
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited33

Following the 1918 collapse of the two major empires that ruled central Europe, Austria-Hungary and Germany, successor states inherited billions of increasingly depreciating paper monies. The conversion of imperial currencies posed enormous difficulties for successor states and exposed the limits of an emerging international order that rendered the pan-European predicament of defunct imperial currencies the problem of individual states. This article compares the first, and one of the last, conversions of imperial currencies, taking monetary transitions in Alsace-Lorraine (1918) and Transylvania (1920) as case studies. Although historians usually treat western and east-central European history separately, the conversion of imperial currencies produced similar outcomes in both the former Alsace-Lorraine and Transylvania. Differences emerge where one would not expect them: the phasing out of the paper mark was coupled with systematic ethnic discrimination against Germans in Alsace and Lorraine, while in Transylvania, some ethnic minorities even managed to benefit from the process

Ancient history · Archaeology · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Ethnic group · German · Order (exchange · Political science · Successor cardinal · Central European national history · European history and politics · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Law

Tools

Open DOI