Occupation of the Ruhr important harbour in Duisburg-Ruhrort, ending French occupation of the Ruhr region on 25 August 1925. According to Sally Marks, the occupation of the Ruhr "was profitable and caused neither the German hyperinflation, which began in 1922 and ballooned because of German responses to the Ruhr occupation, nor the franc's 1924 collapse, which arose from French financial practices and the evaporation of reparations". Marks suggests the profits, after Ruhr-Rhineland occupation costs, were nearly 900 million gold marks. Despite his disagreements with Britain, Poincaré desired to preserve the Anglo-French entente and thus moderated his aims to a degree. His major goal was
Rhine-Ruhr 20th century. Since the Middle Ages, Cologne, Dortmund and other cities were important regional trading cities, but during the 19th century the city of Düsseldorf grew to become the administrative center of the region and since 1945 its political capital. Today, the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region accounts for roughly 15% of the GDP of the German economy, which would place it as the 4th largest GDP of metropolitan area in the European Union and the 16th largest GDP in the world. Despite this size, the Rhine-Ruhr region as a whole often lacks international competitiveness because it lacks a unified presentation. Cities