ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the several stages of nineteenth-century German monetary unification. The history of nineteenth-century German unification has long served as a beacon for subsequent discussions of European integration. The older, long standing, historiography had the founding of the German Reich in 1871 at the centre of the historical stage. In order to appreciate the achievement of German monetary union, it is useful to consider the international monetary context within which it developed, in particular, to comment briefly on the question of the international commodity money standard. Oversimplifying somewhat, the discussion of German monetary union has concerned what was rapidly becoming the economy's 'small change'. The kingdom's rulers assigned high priority to the economic integration of its western and eastern parts, in which financial and currency reforms played an essential role. The degree of monetary integration attained before 1871 depended strongly on the political and economic preponderance of the Kingdom of Prussia.
