DIRECTOR’S PREFACE 
This book, which discusses the German foreign loans from 
1924 to 1926 inclusive, covers a short but practically complete 
period of German borrowings abroad. No important German 
loan had been floated in any foreign country for many years 
prior to 1924, and since the end of 1926 the volume of loans 
publicly offered has been relatively small. Whether a new era of 
practical self-sufficiency in the German credit market is near at 
hand, however, remains to be seen. 
While the volume includes an estimate of the total of all 
German loans publicly floated abroad during the years in 
question, the detailed analysis relates only to the loans publicly 
offered in the United States. No attempt is made to draw 
conclusions as to the wisdom of such borrowing from the 
point of view of Germany, nor of the safety of the loans from 
the point of view of investors; the author merely presents 
the facts as revealed by the documentary evidence. The cole 
purpose is, by a systematic grouping of the facts, to clear a 
path through the thicket which has thus far made it well-nigh 
impossible to understand the significance of these gigantic 
financial transactions. An appraisal of the character and terms 
of these loans and of the purposes for which they have been 
negotiated is the more important in view of the fact that this 
is the first time in history that a highly developed industrial 
country has resorted to foreign loans on a vast scale. In the 
past, such obligations have been incurred only by developing 
countries possessed of unexploited natural resources. 
Harorp G. MOULTON, 
Director. 
INSTITUTE OF ECONOMICS, 
June, 1927. 
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