The well-known German aversion to inflation has attracted a lot of interest and is often attributed to a specific historical memory: Weimar. Yet we do not know much about why hyperinflation seems to overshadow the Great Depression in German collective economic memory. To answer this question, we study what exactly it is that Germans believe to remember about their past. Using original survey data, we show that many Germans do not distinguish between hyperinflation and the Great Depression, but see them as two dimensions of the same crisis. They conflate Weimar economic history into one big crisis, encompassing both rapidly rising prices and mass unemployment. Additionally, more educated and politically interested Germans are more likely to commit this fallacy. Our finding thus nuances ideational explanations for Germany's economic policy stance in the European Union.

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误记魏玛：恶性通货膨胀、大萧条和德国集体经济记忆

众所周知，德国人对通货膨胀的厌恶引起了很多兴趣，并且通常归因于特定的历史记忆：魏玛。然而，我们并不知道为什么恶性通货膨胀似乎掩盖了德国集体经济记忆中的大萧条。为了回答这个问题，我们研究了德国人认为要记住他们过去的究竟是什么。我们使用原始调查数据表明，许多德国人不区分恶性通货膨胀和大萧条，而是将它们视为同一危机的两个维度。他们将魏玛的经济史混为一谈，包括迅速上涨的物价和大规模失业。此外，受过更多教育和对政治感兴趣的德国人更有可能犯这种谬论。因此，我们的发现对德国的概念解释产生了细微差别。