German Notgeld
notes by Charles R. Jansen, Ph.D.
WHAT IS NOTGELD?
How was Notgeld used?
Type of Notgeld
Reflections of Notgeld
Notgeld literally mean's "emergency money." It was printed
throughout the "emergencies" of World War I, the violent transition
to the Weimar Republic, and the hyperinflationary period which came to an
end in 1923. Originally issued to replace precious coinage during World
War I, Notgeld became a flood of authorized, unauthorized but tolerated,
and illegal bills printed during the post-war period of hyperinflation.
Although largely worthless -- due not only to the unprecedented scale of
inflation, but also to the typically small denominations of Notgeld
and its very limited validity of sometimes only a few weeks -- Notgeld
was often produced with a very high degree of artistic quality in a remarkable
variety of styles.
Notgeld bills were printed in staggering profusion, particularly
after World War I when Germanys answer to hyperinflation was printing ever
greater amounts of money: "The road to inflation, like the road to
hell, is paved with good intentions, and it was to turn 'ill into good'
that the German government gave the license to print money . . . . The basic
licenses were given in the Financial Laws of August 1914, which . . . [resulted]
in the authorization of the issue of emergency money (Notgeld ) and
in the relative toleration shown to the circulation of unauthorized emergency
money" (Guttmann and Meehan, 1975, pp. 42-43). Notgeld was printed
legally by cities and firms in small notes, typically under one Mark. Some
36,000 different notes of this type were published from 3,658 localities.
All in all approximately 163,000 issues of all types of German emergency
paper money were published (Coffing, 1988, p. 7) for an estimated total
face value of over 500 trillion Marks!
Coffing, Courtney L. A Guide and Checklist of World Notgeld 1914-1947.
Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 1988.
Guttmann, William and Meehan, Patricia. The Great Inflation: Germany
1919-1923. London: Gordan and Cremonesi, 1976.
