A nation pays homage to the hallmark of its economic success and prepares to bid it farewell

By JORDAN BONFANTE /BONN

t gave many of us the feeling that it could bring us a future," Chancellor Helmut Kohl remembered, as he swayed at the pulpit like a preacher and recalled the crisp new bills he held in his hand when he was 18. "It helped us to recover a piece of our identity. For 50 years, it has been for many of us the embodiment of our stability." Hans Tietmeyer, the high priest of the cult as president of the Bundesbank, chimed in just as solemnly. "People say the stability culture of the Germans is based on their traumatic experience with inflation. That's true," he said. "But that culture is based equally on the experience of what good money can achieve. The deutsche mark is proof of that and it symbolizes postwar Germany."

Those homilies to a benign Mammon, god of money, took place in Frankfurt's landmark 18th century Paulskirche last month as Germans commemorated the creation of the deutsche mark half a century ago. And although the church was deconsecrated as a house of worship in 1944 it was hard to escape the almost liturgical overtones of the commemoration as the burghers and bankers of Frankfurt, 2,000 strong in their dark Sunday suits, turned out to pay homage to their money. In Germany this summer no anniversary has so captured the attention of the populace like the birthday of its currency. Commemorative stamps were issued; a collector's 10-mark coin was minted, and TV screens and news pages were awash in histories and grainy flashbacks.

It is safe to assert that no other currency in the world enjoys quite the same sacred status in its country's iconography. The Almighty Dollar may be a pillar of U.S. super-powerdom and the pound sterling is redolent of Empire. But only in Germany is the coin of the realm the country's veritable national symbol, more exalted than either the national flag or the splayed black German eagle.

Its sacred nature harks back to its now nearly mythical role in helping the German Phoenix rise from the ashes of World War II. In 1948 the U.S. Mint printed up $2 billion worth of marks, shipped them over in crates, and distributed them in the American, British and French zones of occupation. Indeed, "the U.S. was godfather as the deutsche mark was lifted up to be christened," Finance Minister Theo Waigel recalled last week in a Bonn ceremony. Suddenly, a barter economy based more on cigarettes and candy that on the nearly worthless Reichmarks left over from Hitler's Germany, was transformed into a throbbing industrial engine. Just as suddenly, Josef Stalin imposed a choking blockade on West Berlin--inadvertently sealing what U.S. Ambassador John Kornblum last week called the "uncanny harmony" between the U.S. and Germany in times of difficulty.

In the '50s and '60s the deutsche mark went on to serve as anchor of Germany's economic miracle. A population seared by two devastating hyper-inflations in a single generation readily joined a nearly obsessive consensus in favor of the deutsche mark's solidity and the ultra-conservative policies of the money's guardian, the Bundesbank. In the resulting monetary environment--steadier and stodgier than any outside of Switzerland--Germany was able to enjoy exceptional labor harmony, avoid the wage-price spirals that were hobbling neighboring economies and develop its export-industry powerhouse.

"The deutsche mark's most important role, though, was in imposing a entire 'stability culture'," says Commerzbank economic research director Jurgen Pfister. "Unlike other countries we have no labor contracts linked to the cost of living, no indexed social security, as in the U.S., and not much in the way of short-term lending at rapidly changing interest rates. Our corporate culture too continues to reflect this influence."

Another reason for the German love of the deutsche mark is a postwar culture which, because of Hitler's National Socialism, was unable to feel pride in any other "national" symbol. "We have no kings or queens," Pfister says. "In recent history, at least, we have not had much to be proud of. The deutsche mark has been the symbol of our economic recovery and our continuing economic success. It is the national symbol."

As much as it the currency is venerated, however, the 50-year ceremony may have been more a requiem for the deutsche mark than a jubilee. With the coming of the European Monetary Union it is to be phased out by 2002 and replaced by the 11-nation euro. Accordingly, political and monetary leaders struggled to counter popular resistance to turning in the cherished deutsche mark for the unfamiliar euro. The Netherlands' Wim Duisenberg, designated first president of the European Central Bank, acknowledging that the euro will not be risk-free, promised to pursue policies that will make it safe. How safe? "Our goal," said Duisenberg, "is to make the euro every bit as stable and world-recognized as the deutsche mark." As they say farewell to their sainted currency, Germans no doubt will be praying that Duisenberg is right.