The Great Depression. Treaty of Versailles (Social Studies)

The Great Depression was a stage in time where the world was thrown into an economic collapse. This made money worthless to many countries causing chaos unless the issue was solved. To start with Germany had a mass unemployment stage during the Great Depression. This happened because of the Treaty of Versaille which caused the unemployment of over 5 million military troops. Poverty soared during the Great Depression as Germany had to pay for all the damage and problems it had caused for other countries which came to a total of 132 billion gold marks (33 billion US dollars). The Smoot Hawley Tariff act of 1930 massively affected the trading system for Germany. The act denied the right for most German industries to sell their goods in a foreign market. To pay its debts Germany started hyperinflation of its currency. They had printed so much money that by 1923 the German currency was utterly worthless. This caused people's savings to become worthless meaning there would be very little capital in the German economy for many years to go. 

After the first world war, Germany had to sign the Treaty of Versaille. This stripped Germany of a lot of lands, some being rich with resources. The Treaty also meant they had to pay for reparations. This would throw all of Europe's currency into useless paper. Germany was limited to the number of resources they could have, the military units and power they could have, and their land. Germany could only have a military of 100,000 troops and a naval power of 15,000 troops. They were to have no air force or submarines and only 6 small battleships. Germany previously had an army of 6 million, their drastic reduction to 100,000 caused massive unemployment.  

New Zealand was affected instantly but over time the effects started creeping in. New Zealand was a country dependent on export, mainly agriculture. In 1930 New Zealand's exports started failing as prices plummeted. The prices had fallen 45% by 1933 which was catastrophic to New Zealand. Urban businesses and manufacturers massively felt the effect by the end of 1930. Unemployment rates rose in New Zealand up to 12% and the people that managed to keep their jobs had their pay cut by around 20%. The great depression caused riots in some of the larger cities in the first 6 months of 1932. The government tried fixing the unemployment rates by giving men jobs to travel large distances for very little pay.