Notgeld currency. Three 100-pfennig notes.

(GERMANY).

Sternberg

1922

Notgeld (“emergency money”) refers to currency issued in a time of economic, or political crisis. This occurs when insufficient state-produced money was available from the central bank. In 1922 Germany experienced hyper-inflation and as the value of the mark deteriorated ever faster, new money had to be issued constantly - often in much higher denominations. The present Notgeld is of an anti-Semitic historical character and concerns itself with the purported desecration of the host in 1492, when it was alleged that local Jews were torturing the symbolic body of Jesus. The first in this series displays Jews acquiring the wafers; the second depicts Jews torturing the hosts and the third shows the Jews punished for their desecration. The reverse of the notes are all decorated with an image of Sternberg in 1492, the year that 26 Jews were burned at the stake for this alleged crime.