(English: "Welcome money") was, from 1970 until 29 December 1989, a gift from the government of the Federal Republic of Germany (

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

) to visitors from the German Democratic Republic (GDR -

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

). This situation originated with the policy of the GDR government restricting the amount of

East German Mark The East German mark ( ), commonly called the eastern mark ( ) in West Germany and after German reunification, reunification, was the currency of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Its ISO 4217, ISO 4217 currency code w ...

s (M) that could be exchanged into

Deutsche Mark The Deutsche Mark (; "German mark (currency), mark"), abbreviated "DM" or "D-Mark" (), was the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until 1990 and later of unified Germany from 1990 until the adoption of the euro in 2002. In English, it ...

s (DM) by GDR citizens when on approved travel to the West. At first, the GDR allowed the exchange of 70 M annually into DM, however by 1989, this sum was reduced to 15 M annually, which greatly restricted the ability of GDR citizens to travel to the West, even if they were approved to do so. Originally, every GDR citizen was entitled to a "welcome money" payment of 30 DM twice annually; by 1988, this had been increased to a one-time payment of 100 DM annually, which was recorded in their travel documents. The state of

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

paid an additional 40 DM to visitors from the GDR. After the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989, tens of thousands of East Germans queued in front of banks and town halls in West Germany to collect their "welcome money" for the first time.East-West relationships between minimum exchange and welcome money
on DDR Museum website. Retrieved 31 August 2019. The payment of "welcome money" ended on 29 December 1989, as it was never intended to be paid out to such large numbers of visitors. This was replaced with an arrangement whereby GDR citizens could exchange 100 M into DM at a ratio of 1:1, with an additional 100 M exchangeable into DM at a ratio of 5:1. This arrangement ended when the GDR adopted the West German currency on 1 July 1990.Bromley, Joyce E. (2017
''German Reunification: Unfinished Business''
Abingdon-on-Thames:Routledge on Google Books. Retrieved 2 September 2019. In 1988, approximately 260 million DM was paid out to visitors from the GDR. However, in the months of November and December 1989 alone, 4 billion DM was paid out as "Welcome money". On the other hand, West Germans visiting the GDR had to submit to the (or ), the mandatory exchange of a specified amount of DM per day into the same amount of

East German mark The East German mark ( ), commonly called the eastern mark ( ) in West Germany and after German reunification, reunification, was the currency of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Its ISO 4217, ISO 4217 currency code w ...

s. From October 1980 onwards, the GDR required a minimum exchange of 25 DM daily. Such amounts could not be re-exchanged into DM when leaving the GDR. This practice also ended on 29 December 1989.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Begrussungsgeld Economic history of Germany Economy of East Germany East Germany–West Germany relations Cold War history of Germany 1970 establishments in West Germany 1989 disestablishments in West Germany