20 Franga

Banka e Shtetit Shqiptar — the Albanian State Bank — was established in 1945 after the communist takeover, replacing the Italian-era Banca Nazionale d'Albania. This note belongs to the first series issued under the new regime, a transitional issue produced while Albania was still economically and administratively dependent on Yugoslav and Soviet support rather than any Western framework.

The Reichsdruckerei in Berlin printed this note, which is a mildly awkward fact: by 1945 the press had passed through the end of the Third Reich and into the Soviet occupation zone, where it was reorganized and renamed. Notes from this period carry the inherited infrastructure of the Nazi-era printing apparatus, now working for a Balkan communist government finding its footing.