Two Weeks In A Reunited Germany | Letter to the Editor | Pune Mirror

Dear Ms. Mehta:

Having lived in Germany for many years, I thoroughly enjoyed your article entitled “Two weeks in a reunited Germany” in yesterday’s Pune Mirror.

I was in Frankfurt, the HQ of European Central Bank, when the Deutsche Mark to Euro cutover happened. I still remember a funny editorial in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that appeared on the morning of 1 January 2020, the date of the cutover.

It described the huge traffic jams caused by Germans driving to their banks with the now-demonetized DM notes to exchange them for the new EUR notes. The editor told Frankfurters not to complain, pointing out “You’re not in a traffic jam, you are the traffic jam”.

Then there were other Germans complaining about the long lines in front of bank tellers. The editor made light of it by saying, “You should get to know your neighbors in the line by debating about the names of the monuments printed in the Euro notes”.

Fun times!