Wakefield Museums and Castles

These notes from the back of George's diary detail what he was paid and when.

Note how the currency he is paid in changes depending on the country he is in. Most of the time he is in France and Belgium, and so he is paid in Francs. This was the currency they used before they changed to the Euro. 

10 old Francs converted to around £1.30. This was worth around £60 in today's money.

When he is back home from leave, he gets £5 (which was worth around £245 in today's money).

For the period he was in Duren, which is in Germany, he was paid in what were then Papiermarks (Mks). This was their currency during the period of the First World War. 

German currency changed a lot over the 1900s. It reflected the country's transformation from the German Empire, to the Weimar Republic, to the Third Reich (before and during World War 2), then East and West Germany.

Germany as we know it today has been unified since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990. They have solely used the Euro since 2002.