German Inflation

After World War I, during the period of the Weimar Republic, Germany suffered tremendous monetary inflation as the government printed an excessive supply of marks in order to attempt to simultaneously pay war reparations and stimulate the domestic economy. During the inflation, postal rates rose dramatically, necessitating the regular surcharging of stamp values and the production of phenomenal denominations such as the pair of 5 million mark stamps shown on this cover. Postage rates were changing so frequently that it was hard to keep track of appropriate payments. This cover mailed from Munich to Zurich was franked with a total of 15,050,000 marks but that was still not enough. The Swiss post office in Zurich collected 40 centimes additional postage due from the recipient.