Edward A. Tenenbaum was best of his class of 1942 at Yale. Between the ages of 24 and 26, he was the currency expert for the US military government in Berlin. Against resistance from German currency experts, he designed the successful currency reform in West Germany in 1948, which was enacted by legislation of the three Western occupying powers before the Federal Republic was founded. Tenenbaum, not Ludwig Erhard, laid the foundation for the West German 'economic miracle'. This reform was also the trigger for the division of West and East Germany, which led to the founding of the FRG and the GDR in 1949. Despite his decisive role, Tenenbaum remained largely unknown to the German public. This book not only pays tribute to Tenenbaum's central role in the West German currency reform and thus also in German history. It also covers his entire life up to his early death in a car accident in 1975.