50 Pfennig History Series - Issue 5 - 1635

Arnstadt's 1921 Notgeld series was designed by A. Paul Weber, later far better known as a graphic artist and lithographer whose satirical work under the Third Reich would land him in Gestapo custody in 1937. In 1921 he was still a relatively young commercial artist, and the Arnstadt commissions show the tight, expressionist linework that would define his mature style. The series framed local history through specific years — this issue anchoring its imagery to 1635, deep in the Thirty Years' War, when Thuringia was among the most devastated regions in the German-speaking world.