Abstract TITLE: German Notgeld (1919-23):
Exploring the Past to Reframe the Present
RESEARCHERS: Charles R. Jansen, Ph.D. & Sonja M. Hedgepeth,
Ph.D.
Middle Tennessee State University
Murfreesboro, TN 37132
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This research examines the circumstances and the mentality of the German
people in the crucial transitional period immediately following World War
I using German Notgeld, particularly the locally issued
Kleingeldscheine, as a research tool to explore the social construction
of reality during the first phase of the Weimar Republic (November 1919
to November 1923).
Originally issued to replace coinage under the exigencies of war, German
Notgeld ("emergency money") became a flood
of authorized, unauthorized but tolerated, and illegal bills printed during
the post-war period of hyperinflation that offered a vehicle for advertising,
propaganda, and regional commentary. Monuments of local pride and politics,
German folk-tales and their folk heroes, even jokes in regional dialects
depicted on Notgeld all express a commentary not only
on the rapidly shifting political life and rapidly deteriorating economic
health of the Weimar Republic, but also on the psychic state of common German
people. Appealing deeply to a German Romanticism that touted the virtues
of hearth and homeland, Notgeld was instrumental in constructing
a reality that insulated German citizens from the remarkable violence of
the times while at the same time suggesting ways of coping with the disintegrating
social fabric. Further, we believe that themes of Blut und Boden, nostalgia
for the glorious past, and chauvinisms of all kinds seen in Notgeld
imagery provided strong reins that enabled a National Socialism to tug at
the hearts and minds of common Germans.
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