50 Pfennig, Stadt Kreuzburg in Oberschlesien, 1921

This copy

Accession: OM-00445
Series year: 1921
Actually issued: 1921
magistrate: not read unread
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
Grade: UNC (IBNS)
As issued: full body, square corners, bright unfaded ink and no fold through the design. Estimated from the 600 dpi archival scan, which shows folds, soiling and edge condition but not paper crispness, pinholes, pressing or small repairs.
Estimated value: $10 indicative
Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-09-26.
Dimensions: 90.8 × 62.2 mm (±1.6, from the scan)
Themes: Notgeld Serienschein Weimar Republic Silesia Silesian Uprisings Freikorps

The type

Type: 50 Pfennig, Stadt Kreuzburg in Oberschlesien, 1921
Printer: Not established
Rarity: common

KreuzburgGermany, 1920 borders

Symbology

The Third Silesian Uprising: The last and largest of three risings by Polish-speaking Upper Silesians. The League of Nations partitioned the province the following year; Kreuzburg stayed German until 1945 and is Kluczbork today.
Bürgerwehr und Selbstschutz: "Citizens' guard and self-defence." The civil guard and the *Selbstschutz Oberschlesien*, a Freikorps formation. Two armed irregular bodies, named on municipal currency as the town's defenders.
Die wilde, slavische Flut: "The wild, Slavic flood." There is no way to read this except as it was written. A town put ethnic contempt on its own money, and the note is evidence of how ordinary that was in Upper Silesia in 1921.
The two guardsmen: A civilian in a soft hat and a man in field cap and uniform stand either side of the town view, each holding a rifle at rest.

What was happening

Notgeld began in 1914 out of necessity: coin vanished into hoards within weeks of mobilisation and towns printed their own small change because the Reichsbank could not supply enough.

By 1920 it had become something else. The shortage was easing but the collector market was not, and a town could take real marks for paper it hoped would never be presented. So the municipalities commissioned Serienscheine: lithographed sets, printed far beyond any local need, illustrated with whatever the place was proud of - a legend, a famous son, a battle, a joke in dialect. The result is the most inventive body of graphic design in the history of paper money, made by places with a few thousand inhabitants, in the years when Germany's currency was dying.

The most directly political note in this collection. Kreuzburg in Upper Silesia printed it after the Third Silesian Uprising of May to July 1921, and the text is a victory claim: der große polnische Aufstand vom 5. Mai bis 5. Juli 1921 wurde vor Kreuzburg durch Bürgerwehr und Selbstschutz siegreich abgewehrt - the great Polish uprising was beaten off before Kreuzburg by the civil guard and the self-defence force.

Above it runs a line that is not a report but a slogan: an Kreuzburgs Mauern an deutschem Mut zerschellte die wilde, slavische Flut - on Kreuzburg's walls, on German courage, the wild Slavic flood was dashed to pieces.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 50 Pfennig, Stadt Kreuzburg in Oberschlesien, 1921 in the collection.

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