Bringing the euro to Berlin

From Monday, armoured trucks will start off around the country delivering over 15 billion euro coins and 2.3 billion euro bank notes to banks and large businesses. Stacked up, the banknotes alone would loom 50 times higher than Mount Everest.

Banks estimate the euro changeover has cost them 140,000 deutschmarks (€71,600) per branch and fear an unmanageable onslaught of customers on January 1st.

For many former East Germans, the anticipated queues outside banks all over the country will be reminiscent of the changeover from ostmarks to deutschmarks a decade ago. This time around, the mood in the queues will not be quite as good-natured.

The first stop for most East Berliners after collecting their deutschmarks was the fabled Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe), West Berlin's answer to Harrods. Here, many easterners got their first taste of capitalism on a grand scale.

Employees at KaDeWe joke that they have been ready for next week's euro delivery since 1907. In that year a huge reinforced safe was installed in the cellar of the building.

The safe has never stored anything more valuable than cardboard boxes, but from next week it will house a delivery of euro coins and banknotes which the store estimates will weigh more than 52 small cars.

Insurers worry that the deliveries of euros in Germany, worth more than DM500 billion, will prove too tempting for organised criminals.

In 1990, six money transporters were robbed; so far this year there have been 13 such incidents, with losses of DM20 million. For that reason, insurers would like to call in the army. Considering the weeks of debate it took to agree to send German troops to Macedonia, a deployment of soldiers to guard the new currency and manage the transition is not on.

Police unions are concerned their members will be overworked during the delivery of euros. They say officers will be put at risk by being so thinly spread.

Mr Klaus Eisenreich, spokesman for the German police union said: "We reckon there will be a sharp rise in armed robberies on money transporters. If things aren't closely watched it will turn into Dodge City."