GERMAN WORD OF THE DAY: GROSCHENGRAB

German word of the day: “Groschengrab” (Penny Grave), or how Berliners referred to a coin-operated gas metre.

Gas would only flow, if coins were regularly inserted into the device (not unlike a coin-operated heating in a B&B room in Perth, in Scotland, which once left yours truly standing, watching it bedazzled and in awe as something she had only known from British novels before).

The coins were referred to as “Gasgroschen” (gas pennies) and were regularly borrowed and lent within Berlin Mietskasernen (tenements), where money was not an easily available commodity. Like in this one-room flat occupied in 1919 by 11 persons.

The dire straits in which most of Berlin families or tenants often found themselves in led to the coin-operated gas metres being also thought of as life-saving measures: they prevented suicides by gas-poisoning…