100 Zlotys German occupation

The Bank emisyjny w Polsce was established by the German occupation authorities in April 1940 as a replacement for the Bank of Poland, which had evacuated its reserves and staff to Romania in 1939. The new institution was explicitly colonial in function — designed to extract resources from the General Government territory, not to serve a sovereign economy. This note was among the first series it issued.

Printing was carried out at the Polish State Printing Works in Warsaw, one of the few major industrial facilities the occupation administration kept running under German supervision. The irony of Polish craftsmen printing currency for an occupying power was not lost on contemporaries.

Circulation numbers were substantial — over twelve million printed — but wartime conditions, black market activity, and the eventual 1944–45 collapse of German control in Poland mean that heavily used and damaged survivors are the norm.