Sunday, September 29, 2013

A wheelbarrow full of money

Tony Robinson has a new series of humorous history books for kids. They're quite British and some of the jokes and references don't translate to American English or culture, but I got a set for Marty and for me. Marty knew about this story.




He knew of money carried in wheelbarrows. He didn't know whether a wheelbarrow was ever stolen. :-) I went to look and found photographs (whether posed or candid, I don't know).



With an image search, I came up with lots of images of money-filled wheelbarrows, but general art. Except for the one above, I don't think any were of German money between the wars.

2 comments:

  1. I edited the post, because the wheelbarrow stories were from the 1920's and 30's, I think, not the 40's. And the bottom photo was (I think) German, but the others I found weren't.

    I welcome more info about any of this.

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  2. As far as I recall my history teacher explaining, the photograph is German and from 1929. The money became increasingly valueless and it would take a wheelbarrow of money to buy bread. I remember seeing another black and white photo of two young urchin-style children next to a wheelbarrow of money.

    I can't remember how/when the currency was scrapped/reset... we were studying it as potentially part of the reason for Hitler's success was the astonishing level of poverty that affected post WWI Germany (nearly bankrupted by war reparations at Treaty Of Versailles). Worth checking out for more info - it's an interesting tale :)

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