The Bundesbank raised its rates to 'punish' Kohl for the political 1:1 exchange of the Ostmark for the DM, which did generate inflation - and these rates had to be replicated by the other European economies, which had themselves no need for them.

In that sense, the pain of reunification was exported to other DM-zone countries. France could have chosen not to increase interest rates, and suffer a devaluation of the franc - that it did not was a very real sacrifice for the cause of European unity, which had as its prices the most painful recession in a long time.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes