Not until the middle of 1921 did the German people as a whole begin to realize what was going on. Then the mark had fallen to one-twentieth of its value. Exchange booths sprang up in public squares, railroad stations, banks. Germans found they could realize "profits" by buying foreign currency one day at one rate and selling it a few days later for several thousand marks more.
Germany became a debtor's paradise, a creditor's hell. Real-estate owners, big landlords, industrialists paid off loans and mortgages for a song; small savers, insurance holders, widows & orphans, whose inheritances had been invested in "safe"...
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