10 Kuna

The Nezavisna Država Hrvatska — the Ustaše puppet state installed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy after the April 1941 invasion of Yugoslavia — established its own currency within weeks of coming into existence, the kuna being revived from medieval Croatian coinage to signal historical legitimacy. This note was printed domestically by the Hrvatska državna tiskara rather than farmed out to German or Italian facilities, a deliberate political statement about the regime's ambitions for administrative self-sufficiency.

Ljubo Babić, one of Croatia's most respected graphic artists and stage designers, designed and engraved the series — an unusual case of a figure with genuine cultural standing lending his craft to a collaborationist government.