Catalog
20 Reichsmark Sudetenland and Lower Silesia
| Issuer | Reichsverteidigungskommissare der Reichsverteidigungsbezirke Sudetenland und Niederschlesien |
|---|---|
| Year | 1945 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | Red-brown on tan underprint. The left portion is dominated by an intricate guilloche vignette surrounding the numeral '20', flanked above and below by ornate medallion cartouches. To the right, the denomination 'Kassenschein / Zwanzig / Reichsmark' is rendered in heavy blackletter script over a fine guilloche underprint. A decorative border of geometric and floral guilloche patterns frames the entire note. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Kassenschein Zwanzig Reichsmark Dieser Kassenschein wird auf Grund der Anordnung der Reichsverteidigungskommissare der Reichsverteidigungsbezirke Sudetenland und Niederschlesien vom 28. April 1945 ausgegeben und ist als gesetzliches Zahlungsmittel in Zahlung zu nehmen. Die deutsche Reichsbank (Translation: receipt Twenty Reichsmarks This receipt shall be accepted as the lawful payment method (aka `as currency`) beginning on the 28th of April 1945 by order of the Reich Defence Commissioners of the Reich Districts of the Sudetenland and Lower Silesia. The German Reichsbank) |
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| Comments |
Issued in the final weeks of the war by the Reichsverteidigungskommissare — the Reich defense commissioners — of the Sudetenland and Lower Silesia districts, this note belongs to a desperate category of late-war emergency currency authorized as the German administrative apparatus was physically collapsing. Gebrüder Stiepel in Reichenberg, a commercial printing firm, was pressed into service when conventional supply chains to the Reich's main security printers had broken down.
Soviet and Czech forces entered Reichenberg in May 1945. Notes printed there days or weeks earlier almost certainly never saw meaningful circulation.