Inflation in post-WWI Austria

The traditional periods of Austrian letter-mail inflation are defined as:

Period	Began on	Period	Began on
1	12.11.1918	8	21.8.1922
2	15.1.1920	9	18.9.1922
3	15.4.1920	10	1.11.1922
4	1.2.1921	11	1.8.1923
5	1.8.1921	12	1.12.1923
6	1.12.1921	13	1.12.1924
7	1.5.1922	MF	1.6.1925

The start date for Period 1 is chosen because it is the date the Republic of Deutschösterreich was proclaimed; the rates didn't change. "MF" means mixed-franking.

The exchange rate of Kronen to the £1 sterling is tabulated next:

23.1.1920	11.11.1920	25.10.1921	1.1.1922	31.4.1922	15.6.1922
1,000Kr	2,000Kr	8,000Kr	45,000Kr	93,000Kr	84,000Kr

Austria's worst month was August 1922, with an inflation rate of 129% which means that prices double every 25 days. For comparison, Hungary's first inflation's worst month was July 1923, prices doubling every 31 days. Both these are trivial compared with Hungary's post-WWII inflation, peaking in July 1946 at 42,000,000,000,000,000% with prices doubling every 15 hours. After World War I, essentially all State enterprises ran at a loss, and the number of state employees in the capital, Vienna, was greater than in the earlier monarchy, even though the new republic was scarcely one-eighth of the size.

Inflation shows directly in the progressive increase in the postal rates. New higher face values were steadily introduced, and old smaller or unuseable values withdrawn, sometimes with a brief period when they could be exchanged. After February 1921 all Fahrpost (parcels etc) charges had to be paid in cash, not by applying adhesives: the opportunities for genuine use of high-value stamps were greatly diminished!

Date	LL	IL	FL	IPC	FPC	IRg	FRg
1 December 1921	7½	10	25	5	15	10	25
1 May 1922	20	25	75	12½	45	40	75
21 Aug 1922	80	100	300	50	180	160	300
18 September 1922	160	200	600	100	360	320	600
1 November 1922	320	400	1500	200	900	640	1500
1 August 1922	--	600	2000	300	1200	1000	2000
1 December 1923	--	1000	3000	500	1800	2000	3000
1 December 1924	--	1500	4000	700	2400	3000	4000

LL, IL, FL = local, inland, foreign letter, at lowest weight step (ignoring any reduced-rate eg for Hungary);
IPC, FPC = inland, foreign postcard (ditto); and IRg, FRg = inland, foreign registration fee.

Newspapers are different!

Inflation hit the newspaper post just as for everything else. However, the changes made to cope with it were at different dates from the 'ordinary post' changes, and were often notified in different decrees. Karasek, Kroiss and others refer to Inflation Period 1 etc BUT these are quite different from the letter mail inflation periods and there are only 5 of them - because from1 March 1922, publishers had to pay in cash for posting their newspapers.

The newspaper period start dates are: 1st: 12 Nov 1918; 2nd: 1 July 1920; 3rd: 1 April 1921; 4th: 1 Oct 1921; 5th: 1 Jan 1922.