SHOW ME THE MONEY!!! Display your Third Reich related banknotes/money tokens.

[Wagriff]

Nice set, Leon! Litzmannstadt next?

[Wagriff]

When France suddenly fell , the Germans were not quite prepared for such a huge victory. France is an enormous country and it's governing is as complicated as any in Europe. The German occupiers decided to basically let France do as it wished with it's coinage and currencies. Although the country was divided into 2 parts(Free France and Vichy France) the currency being produced was utilized by both and shows very little if any German influences. It's currency production and varieties were so prolific, it has made the use of 2 posts necessary. The rest of the series will be seen in Part 2.

[Wagriff]

French paper money is among some of the most artistically produced currency in all of Europe. The use of much symbolism is apparent. Take, for example, the 5000 Franc note. On the face of it, it symbolizes France standing with her Colonies, while on the reverse side, France stands strongly alone as well. Of note also are the coins of France. In the early issues, you see again fine alloys being used-silver, aluminum bronze and nickel. After the occupation, several denominations are dropped, silver is eliminated and the quality of the metals drops to common zink and aluminum.

[CARL]

Beautiful notes William, thanks again for sharing them. So finely detailed and well presented by your images.

[Wagriff]

The coins of Marshall Henri Petain's Vichy France definitely show the squeeze that Germany was putting on Vichy. The metals themselves are very low grade alloys-zink and thin aluminum and bear the new motto and startling new images-somewhat menacing double blades axes. And even then, they were forced to economize and reduce the size of the 10 Centime coin to a miniscule size.

[Wagriff]

When Rommel and the Afrika Korps overran Tunisia, they found it in a crisis due to lack of circulating currency. What money there was had all fled from the approaching war and the need for money was quite acute. The solution was to contact Occupied France and they had them send them a shipment of bank notes that had been printed in 1892 but never issued. The notes were first over-printed as to not confuse them with genuine French currency and they were then shipped on over across the Mediterranean to Tunisia. Unfortunately, for the Germans, their stay was quite brief and their efforts were for naught as they were soon forced out of Tunisia again for good. And so their hastily shipped in banknotes became an uncommon curiosity. I have included the coinage of Tunisia at the time, as it shows the influences of Vichy France.

[Wagriff]

Poland, gallant but hopelessly outclassed, was over run in a matter of weeks. The Germans immediately took control of the monetary system and began implementing changes. Their first banknote issued was an Overprinted old Polish one from 1932-4. After this, they began a full printing run of newly designed currency-all showing a heavy Germanic influence. To the coinage, they began issuing the ubiquitous Zink, but used original minting dies from 1923-in a sense, re-issuing older coins but in Zink. It can be seen that the early issues were of very high class and designs, but this soon changed under the Occupation. All silver and bronze coinage was eliminated-including the beautiful 10 Zlotych silver coin bearing the likeness of Jozef Pilsudski and his magnificent Moustache.

[Wagriff]

Attachment 692795

[Wagriff]

The story of Holland and it's "coin resistance" is legendary. One of the 1st things the invading Germans coveted was Holland's rich abundance of circulating coins. So, they introduced an ugly series of Zink coins and asked the people to turn in their fine silver and bronze coins for exchange. No one showed up with any. They then Ordered the people to do so. Again-Nothing. In the end, Germany managed to make off with only 7% of the existing coins, and these were mostly from bank vault seizures. From the people? Not much. But they Did have fun scratching insulting words about the Germans on the zink coins and spending them about. The Netherlands may never have had a chance in the military field against the German's Blitzkrieg war machine, but they certainly beat them with passive resistance! As for the currency, The Netherlands continued on with their series as if the war had never begun and kept right on printing out the beautifully designed banknotes that they had always been so justly famous for.

[Wagriff]