Listening to Germany's political and economic establishment waxing lyrical about the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the deutschmark, it was sometimes difficult to believe they were celebrating a currency rather than a statesman or a war hero.
The Finance Minister, Mr Waigel, even hinted the currency had an erotic quality as he remarked archly that "few 50-year-olds are as desirable" as the deutschmark.
But for most Germans this little coin is a more potent national symbol than any flag or anthem, deserving of more respect than any politician or soldier and with more enduring appeal than any object of sexual desire.
The Bundesbank president, Mr Tietmeyer, summed up the national mood when he spoke of the currency as a symbol of Germany's post-war economic and political stability.
"People often say that the stability culture of the Germans is based on the traumatic experience of inflation. That's true. But the stability is based equally on the positive and encouraging experience of what good money can achieve. The deutschmark is proof of that and it symbolises postwar Germany," he said.
Devised by the Allies to prevent a return of the hyperinflation that preceded Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s, the deutschmark transformed Germany's economic mood as soon as it was introduced on July 20th, 1948. Ludwig Erhard, the finance minister (and later chancellor) responsible for Germany's post-war economic strategy, decreed that shops should be filled overnight with goods that had not been available since before the war. The psychological message was clear: the new currency made everything possible.
"I'll never forget the impression when I walked through the city on the Monday after the currency reform and saw goods in the shop windows once again. In this unforgettable moment I realised clearly for the first time that a stable currency and a liberal economic policy belong together," said Count Otto Lambsdorff, former leader of the Liberal Free Democrats.
The new currency replaced the reichsmark, which most Germans associated with galloping inflation, instability, war, defeat and shame. Writing in the weekly Die Zeit this month, the critic Fritz Raddatz suggested that the deutschmark represented a painless way of leaving the past behind and embracing a bright, new future.
"It was smooth, like the faces of the GIs in their smart uniforms; it was colourful like Rita Hayworth's gowns. It sounded like the jitterbug and rustled like the silver paper of a packet of Chesterfield," he wrote.
Strict control of inflation kept the deutschmark strong as Germany's economic miracle saw the country regain its status as a major player in the world market. The foundation of the Bundesbank in 1957 institutionalised a culture of stability that dovetailed perfectly with the country's post-war terror of turbulence and uncertainty.
When communism collapsed in East Germany in 1989, it was the lure of the deutschmark that made reunification irresistible as easterners rushed to exchange their tainted currency for the shiny western symbol of sound money and prosperity.
This heritage will make it all the more painful for Germans to take their leave of the deutschmark when the euro comes into circulation next year. Most Germans remain opposed to the single currency, even if all the mainstream political parties are in favour.
Every effort to block the euro, politically and legally, has failed and organised opposition is weak and somewhat eccentric. Most Germans are hoping that the rest of Europe will choose to emulate the success of the deutschmark as soon as economic and monetary union is launched.
But, as Mr Tietmeyer told guests at last Friday's anniversary celebrations in Bonn, such an aspiration depends on a shift in economic culture throughout Europe that many observers fear is impossible.
"Without members' readiness to reform and without sustainable stability-oriented policies in the European Central Bank and at the individual national level, the euro will not become what it must become: a currency as stable as the mark," he said.
