German emergency money (Notgeld) - Overview
The first issues of German emergency money were made shortly after the start of the war in August 1914 in the parts of East Prussia attacked by Russian troops, as the population immediately began to hoard coins (metal, ½ and 1 mark silver) and a demand for these denominations arose. Almost at the same time, such developments also took place in Alsace, which had belonged to Germany since the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/1871 and was attacked by France. The denominations were initially 50 pfennigs and 1 mark, later also higher.
In the course of the war, the small coins of 1, 2, 5 and 10 pfennigs also became scarce, as the metal value quickly exceeded the face value. The state authorized municipalities and later also factories and businesses to issue small denominations to cover the demand, which the Reich treasury could no longer meet on its own.
A collectors' market quickly developed for the sometimes pretty and graphically appealing notes, so that after the end of the war in 1918/1919, many municipalities, clubs, cafés etc. began to produce the small bills in series and sell them to collectors, giving rise to "serial notgeld (Serienscheine)".
As inflation progressed, ever higher denominations were issued, which were usually worthless after a few days, later after hours. Denominations of 100, 500 and 1000 marks quickly had to be expanded to 10000, 100000 and then to millions and billions. Finally, some authorities tried to combat the rapid devaluation with vouchers for material assets, for example emergency bills denominated in fat, gas or gold. The Reichsmark banknotes finally reached 100 trillion marks at the end of 1923/beginning of 1924, when 4.2 trillion marks were equivalent to one American dollar. The Reichsbank temporarily stopped its work and succeeded in stabilizing the currency again with the introduction of the Rentenmark at a ratio of 1 trillion to 1 Rentenmark.
As a special form of emergency money, the various issues of the prisoner-of-war camps should also be mentioned, in which Germany held mostly French, English and Russian prisoners of war from 1915 onwards and authorized the individual camps to produce their own camp currency. The background to this was that the prisoners of war had no generally valid means of payment if they escaped from the camp, which made it more difficult for them to escape.
