On the day the wall fell, I was in Leipzig and I saw on TV what was happening. I immediately knew this was an irreversible process and I thought: “I don’t want to get involved in all the hype! I’m not in any rush.” My wife and I did not want to skip work just to be part of all the commotion.
The law gazette I subscribed to had already reported in the spring that every East German citizen could apply for a passport and that is what my wife and I did. On the 14th of November 1989 we took the bus to the newly opened border crossing between Teltow and Lichterfelde-Süd. We picked up our Begrüßungsgeld and I bought the latest issue of Der Spiegel in the newsagents next door, which meant I was left with mainly small change. I didn’t spend the 100 mark. I merely tested it out and then tried to increase it. I managed to do this by selling coins and antiquarian books to second-hand bookshops and coin dealers in Steglitz.
In West Germany you had to have 100 mark before you could open a bank account and in May 1990 I was able to open an account. It was a very exciting time.
But the monetary policy pursued during the reunification has failed. It was far too rushed! They should have kept the two currencies a bit longer; this would have encouraged people to produce more rationally. It was better organised in the Czech Republic, where privatisation happened a lot slower. Don’t get me wrong, there were unemployed people there too, but not on such a large scale as here.
»We picked up our Begrüßungsgeld and I bought the latest issue of Der Spiegel.«