Mises’s brief book review assesses the sixth revised edition of Helfferich’s Das Geld, published in 1923, by contrasting its continuing historical value with its theoretical shortcomings. The review moves from Helfferich’s earlier achievements through a decisive intellectual reversal to a qualified verdict on the revised work.
Initially, Mises presents Helfferich as Ludwig Bamberger’s worthy successor: a defender of Germany’s gold currency against bimetallists and other inflationists, a historian of German monetary reform, and the author who systematized the German gold-currency school’s teaching in 1903. This appreciative opening establishes the standard against which Mises judges Helfferich’s subsequent development.
The decisive change, Mises insists, occurred between the first edition and the second, published in 1910, rather than during the later revisions. The third, fourth, and fifth editions reproduced the second edition unchanged. His central objection is therefore to an established theoretical position:
Der Jünger Bambergers ist dem Banne von Knapps staatlicher Theorie verfallen und hat in unhaltbarem Eklektizismus Bamberger und Knapp zu vereinigen gesucht.
English translation: Bamberger’s disciple has fallen under the spell of Knapp’s state theory and has sought, in an untenable eclecticism, to reconcile Bamberger and Knapp.
Mises identifies this attempted reconciliation as the book’s fundamental error, without developing a detailed refutation in the review. His second criticism concerns its complete neglect of foreign—and also German—monetary-theoretical literature. The final assessment separates historical and statistical usefulness from theoretical adequacy:
Das Buch hat noch heute hohen Wert durch seine geldgeschichtlichen und statistischen Ausführungen; in theoretischer Beziehung kann es leider nicht befriedigen.
English translation: The book still has great value today through its discussions of monetary history and statistics; in theoretical terms, unfortunately, it cannot satisfy.
The review’s force lies in this distinction: substantial historical scholarship does not redeem what Mises regards as an incoherent theoretical synthesis and inadequate engagement with monetary theory.
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