0 Euro - Genex - Geschenke in die DDR

Genex — the Gesellschaft für Nichtkommerziellen Außenhandel — was a uniquely cynical institution: an East German state enterprise that allowed West Germans and West Berliners to purchase consumer goods, vehicles, even prefabricated houses, for delivery to relatives in the GDR. Hard currency came in; the regime kept it. The recipient got a washing machine or a Trabant, bypassing the chronic shortages of socialist retail entirely. It ran from 1956 until German reunification made it redundant.

The souvenir zero-euro program, licensed by the ECB and printed by Oberthur Fiduciaire, has issued hundreds of these topical notes since 2017. They are legal in format only — no face value, no tender status.