The cherished mark will lose its role as the world's second most important reserve currency from the start of 1999, when the euro will be created.

While the currency will remain in circulation until 2002, when euro notes and coins will be issued, it will cease to exist in its own right when the Bundesbank shifts monetary policy control to the European Central Bank at the end of the year.

Undaunted, Germany has planned a series of events this month to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the birth of the country's most stable currency ever, which for most Germans is linked inextricably to their current prosperity.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Bundesbank president Hans Tietmeyer and his deputy Johann Wilhelm Gaddum, will speak at a ceremony in Frankfurt's Paulskirche, the seat ofthe first German parliament, on June 20.

A commemorative book, commissioned by the Bundesbank, with contributions from leading historians and economists, will be published on June 19.

Designed to rid Germany of the hyper-inflation which had undermined the then-worthless Reichsmark, the deutschemark was born in intense, marathon negotiations between Germany and the victorious World War Two allies which began on April 21, 1948.

The talks took place at a US army base in Rothwesten near Kassel, where Tietmeyer will speak on June 15 in the first of the week's commemorative ceremonies. Germany was represented by Karl Bernhard, president of the Bundesbank's forerunner, the Bank deutscher Laender, together with a further 10 colleagues. The Allies' delegation was led by US lieutenant Edward A Tenenbaum, whom some contemporaries credit with masterminding the reform plan. On April 20, 1948, amid top-level security, the German delegation was taken in a bus with blacked out windows to the secret location of theclosed-session talks.

Hans Moeller, an economics professor who was present, wrote later: "The accommodation and working areas were situated in a single building at the barracks in Rothwesten which was cordoned off with barbed wire.

"Although the working conditions initially looked extremely unfavourable from the outside... the group started work after some fierce complaining to the military governments. "The importance of the task, the cooperative atmosphere of trust and friendship among the German experts and probably also the isolation from the outside world ensured that an atmosphere was created which was very pleasant and fostered progress with the work," he said.

The secret session lasted 49 days, ending on June 8, and was marred by bouts of intense argument between the Germans and their military government representatives.

The two sides clashed, for example, on the question of how much of the new currency should be distributed to the population in the first issue -- the Germans against a moregenerous issue which they said could raise false hopes.

The argument escalated to the point where one German participant, Erwin Hielscher, left the talks in protest. Germany finally won through in its bid to limit the first issue of the new currency.

The first distribution of the mark came on Sunday June 20, 1948. Heads of families and those living alone streamed in their thousands to the local centres where they could exchange 60 of the old Reichsmark for 40 freshly-printed mark notes.

The currency reform took place one week later.