Enough nostalgia about the deutschmark.
The guilder had been linked to the Deutschmark since 1972.
In 1987, Lawson began to "shadow" the deutschmark, intervening whenever the pound went above 3 DMs.
It was a wrench to surrender the Deutschmark, symbol of post-war recovery and economic success.
Lawson suspected that Walters had turned Thatcher against the policy of "shadowing" the deutschmark.
Seventeen currency appreciations not only strengthened the deutschmark, it kept the export industry on its toes.
In September the deutschmark was the most powerful currency and sterling the weakest within its band.
Why, they said, if German voters had been asked, they would never have given up the Deutschmark for the euro.
When the deutschmark was weak in the years immediately after the second world war, West Germany took full advantage.
This is in itself extraordinary: the constitution, together with the deutschmark, was the great symbol of postwar German success.
This meant that, compared with the deutschmark, the dollar was at its highest rate for more than ten years.
