Evidence of the existence of a high-limit degradation temperature for polymers is reported. At this high-limit temperature, the rate of polymer thermolysis exceeds the reaction rate predicted by the Arrhenius law by many orders of magnitude. An explanation is proposed for the observed behaviour, based on the disappearance of intermolecular interactions. For the study of degradation reactions under high-limit temperature conditions, new methods of fast (pulsed) thermal analysis are presented. The investigated samples, as very thin films, are brought into tight contact with a hot moving metal surface. Under these conditions, the heating rate exceeds 104 deg/s, allowing estimation of accompanying decomposition rates for heating times of the order of 0.01 s.