The Franco-Belgian invasion of the Ruhr was the main cause of the

hyperinflation. Assess the validity of this view.

The Franco-Belgian Ruhr invasion was a military act on German territory,

led by French and Belgians, due to the fact that Germany did not pay their
reparations. The Ruhr area was at that time the most important economic
area, Germany had, therefore, taking that away would have caused major
economic instabilities within the country. Germany after WWI faced
political, economic and social instabilities, especially caused by the Treaty
of Versailles. The economic strategy, Germany based its finance was
printing more money to pay its debts, however, this caused an inflation.
Nevertheless, in 1923 Germany faced a so-called hyperinflation. There is
no clear definition of hyperinflation, but usually economists see it as a
hyperinflation, when the currency of a country falls by more than 50%,
within one month.

First of all, the invasion caused less money from tax payers, because the
whole Ruhr area was now controlled by French and Belgians. Germany
could not defend their territory, due to the restriction of the Treaty of
Versailles, where they were allowed to have an army of only 102,000
soldiers. Only at the beginning of the invasion, the French and Belgians
sent 60,000 soldiers into the Ruhr, followed by 40,000 others, to secure
the area.
There was no tax coming from the most significant economic area and
Germany continued its policy to print more money. Nevertheless, this
policy caused finally a hyperinflation.

While the Ruhr area was occupied, Germany was not able to extract any
raw materials, which led to imports and therefore, higher costs, which
pushed the policy to print more money. On the other hand, the Ruhr was
the main production area in Germany and because of that, Germany faced
shortages when the Ruhr was invaded. Those shortages led to an increase
in demand, which pushed the prices significantly up.

On the other side, Germany could choose a different policy after WWI,
instead of printing money. Raising taxes would have probably been the
unpopular policy in the short term, however, in the long-term, it might
have been the more beneficial strategy. In post-war periods, raising taxes
is a standard way of increasing government revenue. Throughout history,
inflating a currency on such extent, proved to be the wrong economic
policy.

Overall, it should be mentioned that Germany faced a high inflation by the

end of 1922, which was only pushed higher by the invasion of the Ruhr.
The Ruhr invasion was nothing more than an act of weakness Germany,
which made them continue their policy to print more money. Finally,
printing more and more money led to the point where the definition of
hyperinflation was reached. Therefore, it is nowadays called The
Hyperinflation from 1923. The hyperinflation was reached because of the
poor prepared German finance ministers in the post-war period and not
only due to the Treaty of Versailles.