20 Pfennig

Berchtesgaden notgeld is among the most politically loaded small-change paper in German numismatics. The town sat at the foot of the Obersalzberg and had been administratively entangled with the Nazi apparatus since the mid-1930s. This 1920-dated piece is a straightforward wartime municipal emergency issue — the print date of 30 April 1945 is the detail that arrests attention. That is the day Hitler died in Berlin, and within days American forces entered Berchtesgaden itself.

Whether the note ever reached circulation in any meaningful sense is doubtful. A. Zeitler signed as acting first mayor of a town that was effectively collapsing around him.