What happened to the East German Mark following German reunification? The obsolete coins were melted down. But the obsolete banknotes underwent a far more interesting death.
Life of the East German Mark
It all started in 1948. Three days after the Western Allies introduced the West German Deutsche Mark in the American, British and French sectors, the Soviets issued an East German version of the Deutsche Mark in their sector. Although the two currencies bore the same name – Deutsche Mark – they differed in appearance and value. Then, in 1964, the East German government changed the name of their currency to Mark der Deutschen Notenbank. In 1968, they changed that name again to Mark der DDR or simply “Mark.” It remained the East German currency until German reunification in 1990.
Mark der DDR – 1968 to 1989, Photo by J. Elke Ertle © 2914
The Mark following Reunification
Political unification also meant the end of the East German Mark. On 1 July 1990, the Mark was officially demonetized, and East Germany adopted the West German Deutsche Mark. East German citizens were allowed to convert up to 4,000 Mark into Deutsche Mark at a ratio of 1:1. A smaller amount applied to children and a larger one to pensioners. Savings in excess of 4,000 Mark, company debts and housing loans could be converted at a rate of 2:1. Funds acquired shortly before reunification were considered “speculative” and could only be converted at a rate of 3:1.
Destruction of the Mark
Following reunification, the obsolete East German currency became the property of the Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau – KfW – (Credit Institute for Reconstruction). About 4,500 tons of obsolete coins were recycled by selling a portion of them to the auto industry and melting down the rest. The obsolete banknotes, however, (about 620 million Mark) http://www.spiegel.de/einestages/vergessene-orte-a-946505.html were placed into storage in two sandstone caverns in the mountains near Halberstadt in Saxony-Anhalt. There they were left to rot. During the slow process of decomposition, however, two youths broke into the caves and made off with some of the money. Following the theft in 2001, the KfW opted to burn the remaining out-of-date East German paper currency. Thus in 2002, the last obsolete Marks were burned.
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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.
