50 Gulden Stadtholder Willem II

This note belongs to the Liberation series authorized immediately after the German occupation ended in May 1945, when De Nederlandsche Bank faced the twin problem of a currency flooded with wartime issues and collaborator-controlled paper. The Enschedé printing plant in Haarlem had operated under occupation restrictions for five years; resuming sovereign issue work there in 1945 carried obvious symbolic weight beyond the purely practical.

A monetary purge followed quickly — the Dutch government required compulsory registration and exchange of all banknotes in September 1945, effectively freezing hoarded occupation profits. Notes from this Liberation series were part of that reset.