The reparations certainly did not help the balance of payments, but printing money as such did not really help the German government pay the reparations — they

The reparations certainly did not help the balance of payments, but printing money as such did not really help the German government pay the reparations — they were not denominated in Reichsmark, after all, and could not be inflated away. Printing money was a domestic political decision, because the government could not agree to raise taxes (or cut social spending). Much of the seed of fascism was laid in the strength of parties who never believed in democracy in the first place (discussed in some detail by Daniel Ziblatt in _Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy_) and unchecked activity of political movements who never accepted the defeat in WW I. The latter started right at the end of WWI, when Ludendorff and Hindenburg, the German military (and for much of 1916-1918 de facto government) leaders, refused to take responsibility for the armistice and pretended that it was the politicians who had forced it on an "undefeated army". Arguably, the German military command was treated too leniently after WW I. Hanging those two (like their counterparts were after WW II) might have saved millions of lives.