Alternative for Germany supporters march in Berlin. Demotix/Theo Schneider. All rights reserved.When the decision was taken to furnish all countries of the European Union with the Euro as the only currency--at least those not explicitly insisting on retaining their monetary independence--in the 1990s, this was a momentous choice for Germany.
In political terms the Federal Republic of Germany was not a fully sovereign state after its foundation in 1949. Foreign troops remained on German soil, no longer as an official army of occupation, but still enjoying many privileges. As the Second World War had not officially ended in a peace treaty, the status of Germany among the other European states remained somewhat ambivalent. In particular it remained unclear in which way the allied powers of 1945 would use their authority and influence should the chance ever arise for a reunification of the two German states.
When this chance emerged in 1989, reunification came about surprisingly swiftly, despite Mrs. Thatcher’s furious protests and Mitterand’s secret misgivings about such a portentous change in the European balance of power. However, the man presiding over Germany’s fate at this time, Helmut Kohl, decided at the very moment of the rebirth of the German nation state to scrap the Deutschmark in favour of the Euro, thereby undermining the power of one of post-war Germany’s most important institutions, the Bundesbank, and destroying Germany’s monetary autonomy.
