Comment by sigmoid10
German Marks can also still be swapped for legal tender. That doesn't mean it is possible to use them like the Euro.
German Marks can also still be swapped for legal tender. That doesn't mean it is possible to use them like the Euro.
By making the Mark convertible to Euro indefinitely, Germany decided that it would be the only Euro-zone country that wasn’t going to participate in the confiscation of what turned out to be billions from their own citizens. It’s called seigniorage and has been a thing since Roman times or even before.