50 Pfennig, Stadt Köln, 1920

Gutschein der Stadt Köln

common

What was happening

Cologne's emergency money is not a collectors' series but a working currency, issued and re-issued by a city of seven hundred thousand from 1916 to 1921 because there was no coin. The notes are numbered, lettered by print run, stamped with the city seal in red, and signed by the Oberbürgermeister - for most of this period Konrad Adenauer, mayor from 1917 and Chancellor of West Germany thirty-two years later.

The later issues speak Kölsch. Halt fass do Kölscher Boor - hold fast, you Cologne farmer - and Bliev beim Rich et fall sös ov sor, stay with the Reich whatever befalls, sweet or sour. In 1920 the Rhineland was under Allied occupation and there was open talk of a separate Rhenish state; the city's small change is arguing against it.

Symbology

Konrad Adenauer's signature: Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967). The Oberbürgermeister's facsimile on these notes is Adenauer's. He was mayor of Cologne from 1917 until the Nazis removed him in 1933, and went on to serve as the first Chancellor of West Germany from 1949 to 1963, presiding over the country's postwar reconstruction and Western integration.
Bliev beim Rich: "Stay with the Reich, whatever befalls, sweet or sour." Printed in occupied Cologne at the end of 1920, while French and British troops held the bridgehead and separatists were arguing for a Rhenish republic.
The red city seal: Struck across the face of every note. On paper with no engraved security work, the seal in a second colour is most of the defence against copying.

Rarity

German municipal Notgeld survives in very large quantities - much of it went straight from the printer into an album and has never been folded. Catalogued by town in Grabowski and Mehl; the reference number for this note is not yet confirmed.

50 Pfennig, Stadt Köln, 1920

What was happening

1 copy in the collection