Ironically the creation of the common currency set out from totally different expectations and, just as ironically, subsequent disillusion left the initially most enthusiastic with a hangover and the most sceptical on a high.
The Kohl government (specifically Kohl himself) saw the creation of the currency as something in the (preferably) distant future, at the time being viewed with great distaste by the German voters so in love with their (admittedly) hard DeutschMark. So, at least initially, Germany stalled more at the project than actually furthering it.
Then, history tending to be a comedian, the GDR collapsed. Finally.
Leaving everybody stunned and Bonn most of all. Most of all in that the most immediate and direct consequences were hitting Bonn in the prospect of having the greater part of 16 mill. people flee westward in the attempt to finally participate in the "economic miracle". Which, such was the general feeling, would not be possible by staying in a now more free but nevertheless totally broke state that would still be called GDR (as a scenario a possibility, albeit such plans turning out to be very brief).
(Re-)unification was an immediate must, to a large extent for ideological and emotional reasons on both sides but mostly (even where not everybody realized it) for economic reasons. Main drive resting in inducing at least some part of the inevitable human flood to stay home by throwing incentives East.
Of the occupying powers (yes, that was still Germany's official status) the US made favourable noises, the USSR under Gorbachev could clearly be bribed, but France and Britain screamed blue murder.
That's when Kohl gave up his reluctant stance on the common currency and started throwing it as a sop, specifically at France since the Iron Lady was justifiably seen as a hopeless cause.
And, irony abounding in hindsight of today, France, fearful of being alone in such a set-up with this overly brawny neighbour, insisted on having Italy aboard. Something that Kohl and Co. resisted as long as they possibly could, basically on the same argumentative lines that apply even today, namely that on the one hand Italy's lower financial and productive (in short economic) potential would drag the currency down and that on the other hand it would be demanding the entry of its Mediterranean sisters. Successfully so in that France, in its desire to make "the club" as large as possible so as to put more checks onto the Teutons, would heavily support such extensions.
Which is exactly what happened.
What did not happen (even to Germany's surprise) was the curbing of German success, the effect of all these supposedly useful control mechanism developing into the exact opposite direction of what had been envisaged.
For reasons I'll muse upon in a later post today lest this one become a case of tl;dr.
I beg patience with this digression here, it is not however totally OT.