German mark (1871)

The German mark (Goldmark ˈɡɔltmaʁk; sign: M︁) was the currency of the German Empire, which spanned from 1871 to 1918. The mark was paired with the minor unit of the pfennig (₰); 100 pfennigs were equivalent to 1 mark. The mark was on the gold standard from 1871 to 1914, but like most nations during World War I, the German Empire removed the gold backing in August 1914, and gold coins ceased to circulate. After the fall of the Empire due to the November Revolution of 1918, the mark was succeeded by the Weimar Republic's mark, derisively referred to as the Papiermark (Paper mark) due to hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic from 1918 to 1923. North German thaler and South German gulden The introduction of the German mark in 1873 was the culmination of decades-long efforts to unify the various currencies used by the German Confederation. The Zollverein unified in 1838 the Prussian and South German currencies at a fixed rate of 1 Prussian thaler = South German gulden = 16.704 g fine silver. A larger currency convention in 1857 replaced the Prussian thaler with the Vereinsthaler of g fine silver, equivalent to 1 North German thaler, Austro-Hungarian florins, or South German gulden. Unification to this system proceeded further due to German Unification in 1871 as well as monetary conventions from 1865 to 1870 expressing a desire to move to the gold standard. For this system a new unit mark was proposed equal to a drittelthaler or Vereinsthaler, also equal to the Austrian gulden, but decimally divided into 100 pfennig instead of the existing 120 pfennig. Combined with a gold-silver ratio of 15.5, the new mark of g fine silver was therefore equivalent to g fine gold. With 5 billion gold francs (equivalent to 4.05 billion gold marks) secured from France at the end of the Franco-Prussian War, the new currency was launched in 1873 in the form of gold 10-mark and 20-mark coins as well as limited legal-tender silver marks and copper pfennigs.