Deutsche Mark
The Deutsche Mark (DM, DEM) was the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until re-unification in 1990 and the official currency of Germany from then until the introduction of the euro in 1999 (coins and notes were withdrawn from circulation in 2002). One euro was set to be equivalent to DEM 1,95583. 1 Mark = 100 Pfennig (pennies).
The image displays coins with the values of 0.01, 0.02, 0.05, 0.10, 0.50, 1.00, 2.00 and 5.00 DEM. The other side displays an oak leaf (0.01-0.10), a woman (0.50) planting an oak, the Bundesadler (German eagle; 1.00 and 5.00) and faces of the German politicians and scientists Konrad Adenauer (Chancellor), Theodor Heuss (President), Franz-Josef Strauss (Minister of Defense), Ludwig Erhard (Chancellor), Kurt Schumacher (Leader of the SPD), Willy Brandt (Chancellor) and Max Planck (Physicist) (2.00).
The Deutsche Mark was introduced in 1948 by the Western powers once the post-war division of Germany into East and West seemed permanent. The move, intended to protect West Germany from inflation, angered the Russian authorities in East Berlin, who regarded it as a threat and promptly cut off all transport (road, rail and canal) links from West Germany to West Berlin. This led to the Berlin Crisis of 1949.
A mark had been the currency of Germany since its original unification in 1871. While the Mark of the Weimar Republic in the early 1920s underwent hyperinflation, the Deutsche Mark was regarded a symbol of West German and subsequently German economic power and stability. In the former GDR the Mark der DDR (Ostmark) was used.
