ANTI-SEMITIC BANKNOTES

Notgeld
During and following the German hyperinflation of 1923, the worthless large-denomination Reichsbank currency was widely overprinted with various anti-Semitic, anti-Communist, anti-capitalist, anti-inflation, Nazi-inspired, and political slogans. In many towns, special notgeld were issued, often with racist or militant propaganda in their design.

Amstetten, Austria issued currency-like receipts for contributions to the Amstetten German-Austrian Association Anti-Semitic Bund. The front shows burning newspapers; the back has various anti-Semitic propaganda messages. One of the propaganda messages on the notes is:

Overprints
The Austrians and Germans often placed anti-Semitic symbols, caricatures or overprints on their banknotes. I wrote about this in an article entitled “Anti-Semitism on Notgeld” in the International Banknote Society Journal, Vol. 25, No. 3, 1986, and another entitled “Anti-Semitic Overprints on Currency” Vol. 25, No. 4, 1986. Since currency is handed from hand to hand, it is a great media for propaganda. Anyone holding one of these banknotes could read the virulent anti-Semitic propaganda on the front or back.

The leaflet above shows a caricature of a Jew being shocked and frightened by a glowing sun with a swastika at center. The text is:

Here the Germans attack Karl Radeck. As they so often did, they insinuated that all the Communists were Jews, an interesting concept since the Russians probably killed more Jews before WWII than the Germans did during WWII. There are several different texts, but they all have the same general propaganda:

To read the complete article, see:
ANTISEMITISM AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE THEME (www.psywarrior.com/AntiSemiticWWII.html)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY ANTI-SEMITISM EXHIBIT (www.coinbooks.org/E-Sylum_v19n21a35.html)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web