Germany Is Still Obsessed With Cash

The building that might be the spiritual heart of the German economy is a 30-minute walk from Frankfurt’s towering financial district, down a five-lane road lined with squat apartment blocks of exquisite ordinariness.

Located in an annex of the Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, the Money Museum is a sprawling homage to the virtues of sound monetary management, a 10,800-square-foot series of carefully curated displays about the history of currency, the evils of inflation, and the inevitability that policymakers must occasionally make enemies to contain it. On one wall, a looping feed of an impeccably dressed male teller explains gravely why banks must be careful not to lend too much. On another, visitors are invited to try their hand at a curious video game, set to a Mario Kart-style electronic soundtrack, in which the goal is to keep a rolling €1 coin upright while dodging villains that include real estate appreciation, oil shocks, and spiraling food costs. Lose your balance, and the caroming coin flips dejectedly onto one side, felled by a failure to maintain, of course, price stability.