100 Kroner Substitution note

The "substitution note" designation reflects a specific administrative decision: this series was introduced to replace the older 100 Kroner notes withdrawn under the currency reform measures that followed the German occupation. Denmark's Liberation in May 1945 triggered an accelerated withdrawal of occupation-era currency, and the nationalbanken needed a transitional instrument that could be issued and tracked rapidly — hence the broad span of signature combinations running from 1944 well into the late 1950s.

Gerhard Heilmann is better known as an ornithologist than a banknote designer, which makes his work for the Nationalbank an unusual footnote in his biography. The prefix and signature pairings documented across this type are unusually granular, suggesting active use of signature combinations as internal accountability controls rather than purely ceremonial acknowledgment.