German Zollverein as a fact of economic modernization.

So here we have the German mark, nominal – 5. The year of issue of this coin is 1984, mint: Munich, Germany. Total circulation – 8.000.000. The coin was issued in honor of the 150 years since the establishment of the German Customs Union (Zollverein).

The image of the German Zollverein this is customs union, formed in 1834 between the members of the German Confederation has been heavily influenced by two nineteenth century authors. The famous economist Friedrich List (1789–1846) as early as the 1830s spoke of the Zollverein and the railways as the Siamese twins of German economic modernization, thus stressing the importance of market integration for the Industrial Revolution.

The famous historian Heinrich von Treitschke (1834–1896) a half a century later linked the foundation of the German Zollverein in 1834 to the battle of Königgrätz in 1866, drawing a direct line from the beginnings of the customs union to national unification under Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898).

While more recent authors are quite skeptical about either claim, the economic consequences of market integration and nation building still dominate the literature on the German Zollverein.