It was first issued under Allied occupation in 1948 to replace the Reichsmark and served as the Federal Republic of Germany's official currency from its founding the following year.

On 31 December 1998, the Council of the European Union fixed the irrevocable exchange rate, effective 1 January 1999, for German mark to euros as DM 1.95583 = €1.

Mark coins and banknotes continued to be accepted as valid forms of payment in Germany until 1 March 2002.

[4] In 2012, it was estimated that as many as 13.2 billion marks were in circulation, with one poll from 2011 showing a narrow majority of Germans favouring the currency's restoration (although only a minority believed this would bring any economic benefit).

[5][6] Polls in the early 2020s indicated only a minority of Germans supported reintroduction of the Deutsche Mark.

Due to the strains between the Allies each zone was governed independently as regards monetary matters.

The US occupation policy was governed by the directive JCS 1067 (in effect until July 1947), which forbade the US military governor "to take any steps to strengthen German financial structure".

[9] A few weeks later Erhard, acting against orders, issued an edict abolishing many economic controls which had been originally implemented by the Nazis, and which the Allies had not removed.

He did this, as he often confessed, on Sunday because the offices of the American, British, and French occupation authorities were closed that day.

Although the new currency was initially only distributed in the three western occupation zones outside Berlin, the move angered the Soviet authorities, who regarded it as a threat.

In response, the U.S. and Britain launched an airlift of food and coal and distributed the new currency in West Berlin as well.

That meant that people had accumulated large paper assets, and that official prices and wages did not reflect reality, as the black market dominated the economy and more than half of all transactions were taking place unofficially.

The currency reforms were simultaneous with the $1.4 billion in Marshall Plan money coming in from the United States, which primarily was used for investment.

In addition, the Marshall plan forced German companies, as well as those in all of Western Europe, to modernize their business practices, and take account of the wider market.

Marshall plan funding overcame bottlenecks in the surging economy caused by remaining controls (which were removed in 1949), and opened up a greatly expanded market for German exports.

[11][12] While the availability of consumer goods is seen as a giant success story by most historians of the present, the perception at the time was a different one: prices were so high that average people could not afford to shop, especially since prices were free-ranging but wages still fixed by law.

[13] In the Soviet occupation zone of Germany (later the German Democratic Republic), the East German mark (also named "Deutsche Mark" from 1948 to 1964 and colloquially referred to as the Ostmark—literally Eastmark) was introduced a few days afterwards in the form of Reichsmark and Rentenmark notes with adhesive stamps to stop the flooding in of Reichsmark and Rentenmark notes from the West.

The Deutsche Mark earned a reputation as a strong store of value at times when other national currencies succumbed to periods of inflation.

The population in the Saar Protectorate rejected in a referendum the proposal to turn it into a "European territory".

France and the United Kingdom were opposed to German reunification, and attempted to influence the Soviet Union to stop it.

[15] The German mark had a reputation as one of the world's most stable currencies; this was based on the monetary policy of the Bundesbank.

However, it should be remembered that "hard" is relative only if it is compared to other currencies, as in its 53-year history, the purchasing power of the German mark was reduced by over 70%.

Unlike other European countries, Germany retained the use of the smallest coins (1pf and 2pf) until adoption of the euro.

This penchant for accuracy continues with the euro (while Finland or the Netherlands for example, price to the nearest 5 cents) with the 1-cent coin still encountered in Germany.

27 fluorescent fibers embedded in the paper appeared on most banknotes; however, some specimens without these features were in circulation.

Starting in 1976, banknotes were equipped with machine-readable feature - a colorless inorganic oxide mixture applied to the security thread.

All banknotes of the third series bore the penalty for counterfeiting and forgery on the upper right corner of the reverse, from German penal code section 146: "Wer Banknoten nachmacht oder verfälscht, oder nachgemachte oder verfälschte sich verschafft und in Verkehr bringt, wird mit Zuchthaus/Freiheitsstrafe nicht unter zwei Jahren bestraft."

During this period, forgery technology made significant advances and so, in the late 1980s, the Bundesbank decided to issue a new series of Deutsche Mark banknotes.

; [ˈpfɛnɪç]), which unlike Mark does have a commonly used plural form: Pfennige ([ˈpfɛnɪɡə]), but the singular could also be used instead with no difference in meaning.

Before the switch to the euro, the Deutsche Mark was the largest international reserve currency after the United States dollar.