#9: Blaue Fliesen

That's the official story anyway - in reality Western money was used to pay for goods and services on the GDR's internal black market. There were some situations in which using another common slang term for D-Mark, Westgeld (Western money), would have been much too obvious. So adverts or salespeople would ask customers to pay in "blaue Fliesen" (blue tiles) - a secret code referring to the 100 D-Mark note and its blue hue. The term was also used for the purposes of smuggling hard currency.

In the end, the D-Mark did, for a short time, become official currency in the GDR. As the two Germanies prepared for reunification, the Monetary, Economic and Social Union between the countries came into force on 1 July 1990, which saw the West's currency, economy and social security system applied in the East. For many GDR citizens, getting West German money was an exciting moment - the D-Mark was seen by some as a symbol of economic prosperity and the intriguing Western world beyond the Iron Curtain.

Fun fact: 1 July 1990 was a Sunday, so shops were allowed to have a verkaufsoffene Sonntag - an unusal Sunday when shops are allowed to open - which we still enjoy today. On that day, goods like TVs, cars and foreign travel, which the D-Mark had now made accessible to Eastern customers, were in high demand.

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