50 Heller Mauthausen

Mauthausen notgeld is unremarkable on its face — Austrian municipal emergency currency of this type was issued by the hundreds of communities after the First World War. What makes this specific piece genuinely unsettling is the print date: 30 April 1945. That is the day Berlin fell and Hitler shot himself in the Führerbunker. The Mauthausen concentration camp, less than two kilometers from this issuing municipality, was still operational — it would not be liberated by American forces until May 5th.

Whether local officials were aware of events unfolding that day is unknown. The signatures of the Bürgermeister and Vizebürgermeister give it a studied air of administrative normalcy.