Which central bank introduced the euro’s predecessor, the Deutsche Mark, in West Germany in 1948?

The Bank deutscher Länder introduced the Deutsche Mark in West Germany in 1948.

The institution was created in March 1948 by the American and British occupation authorities in the western zones of Germany. Its most famous early responsibility was the currency reform of June 1948, when the Deutsche Mark replaced the severely weakened Reichsmark in the western occupation zones. The reform helped restore confidence in money and trade.

The Bank deutscher Länder was not the same institution as the later Deutsche Bundesbank. In 1957, the Bundesbank Act replaced the Bank deutscher Länder with the Deutsche Bundesbank, which became the central bank of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Bundesbank continued the tradition of emphasizing monetary stability.

The Deutsche Mark was not the euro’s direct official predecessor in a legal sense, although it was one of Europe’s strongest national currencies before monetary union. The euro began circulating as physical cash in 2002, after the European Central Bank and the national central banks of the Eurosystem had been established.