New money old idea for Germans

LUCKENWALDE, Germany -- It's a money swap on a scale never before witnessed -- but for thousands of elderly Europeans, the historic Jan. 1 rollout of euro cash is a case of been there, done that.

"Not again!" complains 67-year-old pensioner Marianne Prehm of former East Germany. "I'd already been through two money changes and now we get this?"

For 300 million people from Finland to Portugal, New Year's Day is E-Day, when they begin trading in their old national currencies for shiny new euro coins and crisp notes.

Such money-swapping may seem strange to Americans, whose dollar has endured little more than a facelift over the last century. But in Europe, and especially Germany, it has long been a fact of life.

Prehm wasn't yet born when Germany switched from the mark to the reichsmark in 1924 to quell post-World War I inflation. But she does recall the second time, on a sunny Sunday morning in 1949, when people formed long lines to dump their reichsmarks, rendered worthless by the Nazis' defeat.

What they got in return were communist-backed East German marks -- "trading worthless money for worthless money."

Again with unification

In 1990 Prehm exchanged her money yet again, this time for West German marks, as the two countries merged their currencies and later became one state. Prehm calls it the "big disappointment," because the 2-1 official exchange rate cut the value of East Germans' savings in half.

Germans aren't Europe's only veterans of such pocketbook overhauls. Ireland replaced its British currency with harp-imprinted coins and Gaelic-scripted bills when it won independence in 1922. Britain itself revamped its money in the 1970s when it abandoned sixpences, shillings and half-crowns. In 1958, France got a new franc worth 17.5 percent less than its predecessor.

But no European nation's relationship with its currency has been as tumultuous as Germany's.

After World War I, the government simply printed more money to pay off its war debt. That sparked hyperinflation, and by 1923 one U.S. dollar was worth 4.2 trillion marks. It took a wheelbarrow of cash to buy a loaf of bread.

Now the mark will give way to the euro, which already exists on paper for its 12 member states and is finally to become bank notes and small change in people's pockets.