75 Pfennig, Stadt Landsberg in Oberschlesien, 1921 (the plebiscite struggle)

Notgeld der Stadt Landsberg Oberschlesien

Reverse of 75 Pfennig, Stadt Landsberg in Oberschlesien, 1921 (the plebiscite struggle) — Reverse 600 dpi

This copy

Accession: OM-00849
Series year: 1921
Actually issued: 1921
Signatures: This issue carries no bank manager or cashier signature.
Grade: UNC (IBNS)
Estimated from the archival scan. Folds, soiling and edge condition are visible at this resolution; paper crispness, pinholes, small repairs and pressing are not.
Estimated value: $10 indicative
Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-10-24.
Dimensions: 91.6 × 62.3 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
Themes: Notgeld Weimar Republic Upper Silesia Silesian plebiscite Allegory Propaganda

The type

Type: 75 Pfennig, Stadt Landsberg in Oberschlesien, 1921 (the plebiscite struggle)
Rarity: common

Symbology

Two figures fighting over a flaming cauldron: An allegory of the 1921 struggle for Upper Silesia, lettered Oberschlesien / Landsberg, rendering the contested plebiscite as two combatants over a burning vessel.
Befreiung v. d. polnisch. Insurgent.: A line on the shared front marking the town's deliverance from the Polish insurgents of the uprising, phrased from the German municipality's standpoint.
Leaping-stag seal, Stadt Landsberg O/S 1241: The town arms and foundation date of 1241, in a barber-pole border on the front.

What was happening

By 1921 Notgeld had turned from wartime necessity into a collectors' market, and in Upper Silesia the paper also carried politics.

Landsberg in Oberschlesien - today Gorzów Śląski in southern Poland - is a small town in the Olesno (Rosenberg) district, first mentioned in 1241. The Treaty of Versailles put the future of Upper Silesia, a region of mixed Polish and German population, to a plebiscite held on 20 March 1921. The region returned an overall German majority while much of the south-east voted Polish, and the disputed outcome was followed in May 1921 by the Third Silesian Uprising, in which Polish insurgents fought to join the area to Poland and German self-defence units resisted. Landsberg issued these notes in that spring (dated 24 May 1921), adding the line Befreiung v. d. polnisch. Insurgent. - the German town's commemoration of its deliverance from the Polish insurgents. The description here follows the note's own, partisan, point of view.

This 75-Pfennig note is the set's allegorical piece: the back shows two figures struggling over a flaming cauldron, lettered Oberschlesien / Landsberg - an emblem of the fight over Upper Silesia's fate. Its companions are [[notgeld-landsberg-oberschlesien-75-pfennig-stadt]] and [[notgeld-landsberg-oberschlesien-50-pfennig]].

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 75 Pfennig, Stadt Landsberg in Oberschlesien, 1921 (the plebiscite struggle) in the collection.

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