When metal for coins became scarce during the first world war, the Reichsbank let German towns print their own cash. While the central bank might have hoped only to alleviate a cash crunch, it ended up unleashing a wave of creativity. The richly decorated and colourful notes, known as Notgeld or “emergency money”, are currently on display in the British Museum’s money gallery, a spectacular record of a turbulent time.
After the war ended, the notes continued in a legal grey area, mostly as a collectors’ item. They were a money spinner for local governments, who decorated them with adverts for the area. Some designs looked back to folklore: one Expressionist note from Auerbach in Saxony depicts a local tale of the mayor appeasing bailiffs by cooking meatballs.
The Notgeld gives a different perspective on the Weimar Republic, according to Johannes Hartmann, the curator of the exhibition. While most people think of Berlin or Munich and associate the period with cabaret, jazz and liberalism, he says, the choice of designs gives an insight into the more conservative, and sometimes reactionary, attitudes of small towns. Many of the Notgeld feature nationalist heroes like Paul von Hindenburg, and one series calls for the return of Germany’s colonies. Others expose dark and violent sentiments: one from Tostedt shows lynched Jewish “profiteers”.