10 000 Dracme

The Cassa Mediterranea di Credito per la Grecia was an Italian occupation authority instrument, not a Greek institution. It was established specifically to extract resources from occupied Greece by issuing currency unbacked by any meaningful reserve — the resulting inflation contributed to one of the most catastrophic famines of the Second World War, the Great Famine of 1941–44, in which an estimated 100,000 Greeks died in Athens alone during the first winter.

The 10,000 Dracme denomination signals how quickly the occupation currency was already racing toward worthlessness. By 1944, the Cassa had issued notes reaching into the billions of drachmai.