On this day in history in 1948 – on June 20, a Sunday – Germans were issued a new currency: the Deutsche Mark. Their previous Reichsmark had become worthless. It no longer bought anything. In the absence of a viable hard currency, cigarettes had taken the place of money.

A few days preceding June 20, American, British, and French troops had quietly dispersed 23,000 wooden crates throughout the country. They were labeled, “Doorknobs.” In reality, these boxes contained Germany’s new bank notes, printed in the United States. To be exact, the crates contained 10,701,720,000 Deutsche Mark.

That Sunday, the places that had previously handed out ration stamps now issued 40 Deutsche Mark to every citizen. Another 20 Deutsche Mark were handed out one month later. Miraculously, the next morning, the previously empty shop-shelves were filling. Merchandise was becoming available for sale again at fixed prices. The cigarette economy was dying. It became apparent that factories and farmers had held back their finished goods and produce until they could be sold for hard currency.

June 20, 1948,
currency reform in Germany
www.Kalendarblatt.de

Following the currency reform of 1948, Germany’s economy took off. Over the next decades it produced the “Wirtschaftswunder” (economic wonder). But it wasn’t only the three western Allies who were responsible for this economic wonder. A man by the name of Ludwig Erhard also deserves much of the credit. He convinced the Allies to declare all rationing systems invalid after the new Deutsche Mark was introduced. Erhard placed his trust in free market forces, and by the end of the 1960s the Deutsche Mark had become an anchor for the European economies.

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic or current events, people, places or food.

Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal