The descent into the depression left bankers, politicians, industrialists, and farmers seemingly helpless in the face of the successive currency and banking crises, growing stocks of unsold food, falling prices, and ever-lengthening queues of men and women waiting desperately for work or for relief payments. This chapter traces the movement into the crisis as it developed and spread as the gold standard broke down, describing the course of the Great Depression in the main areas of the world. A fundamental shift in policy, the abandonment of the gold standard, was needed to arrest this economic contraction. The chapter also considers whether a change of policy in Germany could have forestalled the Nazi regime which imposed horrible costs on Germany and the world.
Keywords: Great Depression, gold standard, currency crises, banking crises, German economic policies, Nazis, Fascist economies