prepared for the euro. structural weaknesses had to be removed. the german capital market is now in a strong starting position and is equipped to meet the competition from other financial centres. [UNK] german bonds set the benchmark for the yield curve in europe. repo business has switched back from london to frankfurt. the german futures exchange now handles more than 70 % of the federal government ’ s contracts. the bunds, too, have returned from london to frankfurt. however, one thing is clear to us : in the long run only a stable euro will have a good chance of taking over the role of a reserve, investment and transaction currency. only a stable single currency will provide the european community with the opportunity to play a major role in the world economy and to do so with correspondingly greater influence than it has today. iv what does this mean for our friends and partners in other parts of the world? many hardly showed any interest in the european debate on monetary union at first ; then, in the end, when things had taken on a more concrete shape, they reacted in astonishment. for a long time the emu project was regarded in non - european countries as having no chance of success. a sarcastic but not at all untypical comment which i would like to quote may serve as an example of this attitude : “ it ’ s a lunatic idea but, to be honest, one that i thought would collapse of its own stupidity. unfortunately, it hasn ’ t, and so here goes. ” ( samuelson, january 1997 ) even us economists for the most part reacted sceptically to the idea of a single currency in europe when they considered its economic justification. on the other hand, the european advocates of the emu project were seldom prepared to answer this criticism. presumably the reason for this was that from the outset they had suspected that americans were being particularly critical about european efforts at integration because they viewed this development through the eyes of competitors. however, internationally successful currencies are not simply established by politicians by decree. they have to stand their own in competition with other currencies on the financial markets. i am certain that it will take some time before the euro will be able to assert itself in the international markets and represent a genuine competitor for the us dollar. at least in the past structural changes in the international currency pattern occurred only very slowly. one only needs to think of the time it took for the dollar to replace the pound sterling. it was no different when the d - mark

year. 1 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches first off, though, a 100 - page historical booklet is being published today. this document provides a summary of the main research findings. unlike the individual volumes, which are more specifically aimed at an expert readership, we are hoping that this booklet will find a wider audience. 3 study topics the booklet outlines the role played by the reichsbank, inter alia, in financing armament prior to 1939, how, during world war ii, it helped to financially exploit the territories occupied by germany, and how it participated in the confiscation and processing of looted gold and other valuables. another major research topic was the continuity in terms of personnel and career paths post - 1945. back then, former employees of the reichsbank who had undergone denazification were hired into positions first at the bank deutscher lander and then at the bundesbank. needless to say, not all the findings are entirely new. time and again, historians have explored similar topics over the past decades. the bundesbank itself has looked to reflect critically on the past. these efforts have yielded numerous publications, exhibitions and conferences. what has been lacking so far, though, is a big picture of german central bank policy before, during and after world war ii. that's a picture we now have. and that's thanks to magnus brechtken, albrecht ritschl and their team of historians, who conducted many years of painstaking work in countless archives across europe to seek out and review source material and reassess it in the light of current research. 4 what comes next the completion of the study brings to a close a project that is of particular concern to the bundesbank's executive board and to me personally. what the team led by magnus brechtken and albrecht ritschl are making available to the general public and the international research community is a treasure trove of insights and findings. their work traces how central bankers became willing accessories to a criminal regime. and it shows how susceptible they were to racism, antisemitism and anti - democratic thinking. let this also be a warning to us : never again should there be antisemitism in germany. never again should minorities be excluded and subjected to state tyranny. never again should government bodies like the central bank be allowed to trample on democratic values. the next step is to help spread the findings of the study