After a long career as a successful writer and editor, Maximilian was ready to retire. And he believed he had more than enough savings to support himself.

Unfortunately, Maximilian lived in the wrong country – Germany – to finance a comfortable retirement. Germany paid for its massive military expenditures in World War I (1914-1918) almost entirely by borrowing. The total tab came to about $45 billion – more than $1 trillion in 2019 dollars. After all, Emperor Wilhelm II reasoned, Germany would occupy great swathes of resource-rich territory in France and Belgium once it won the war.

As we know, things didn't go well for Germany in World War I. By the time Germany capitulated in 1918, Maximilian's retirement stash was worth considerably less than it had been just four years earlier. In that period, the mark lost nearly 50% of its value. It fell from 4.2 to 7.9 marks per dollar.

But that was only the beginning. By the end of 1919, the mark-dollar exchange rate fell to 48-1. By the first half of 1921, it was 90-1. By the end of 1922, it was 7,400-1.