Deutschmark

When the Germans were being persuaded to give up their beloved Deutschmark for the Euro in 1997, they were told it was a price worth paying to enable them to take the European Union in the direction they wanted.

That's the reason he was still seeing West Germany and Deutschmark in 2015.'

"Just finished Matilda's Game - a paperback I purchased 20 years ago and ended up in a pile of stock books for cold winter days." He added: "The price label was in Deutschmark."

The coins were the smallest units of Deutschmark (DM), a currency that was previously used by the Federal Republic of Germany until the euro was introduced in 2002. 

Germany's pre-Euro currency, the deutschmark, was divided into 100 what?

Germany's deutschmark currency (DM), yearned for by some adults but almost unknown amongst children, can still be swapped for euros at the rate fixed back in 2001.

The AfD only launched last February, but its proposal to kill the euro and resurrect Germany's beloved former currency, the Deutschmark, or at least to kick the weaker economies of southern Europe out of the euro, got instant traction.

"Draghi gambles, you pay," read one sign held up by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which wants Europe's top economy to ditch the single currency and says bringing back the once-beloved deutschmark "must not be taboo".

Furthermore, only a minority of the respondents would like to see the reintroduction of the Deutschmark. When the institute asked for the first time back in 2002 whether Germans favoured their old currency over the euro, the majority preferred the Deutschmark.

Those countries that were left behind would be merely part of "a greater Deutschmark zone", he said.

Putin's remarks gain additional significance as they follow reports that Germany is planning to restore the Deutschmark - its former national currency - in case the Euro collapses.

The lev has been pegged to the euro since the beginning (and before that to the Deutschmark, since 1997) in a currency-board arrangement.