Weimar Laser Eyes 50K
@weimartifacts
Here we try an unusual thing: we connect a well-known Bitcoin meme with a real Weimar Republic hyperinflation bill and a real German industrial safety poster. We do not know how old this poster is but its style allows us to suggest that it may be from Weimar times as well.
We do not want to make any statements by this work. However, let's look at various layers of it. First of all, Weimar Republic was a socialist republic. Adam Fergusson and other authors see some populist measures and large budget spending as the main reasons for hyperinflation. The republic was in that vicious cycle where only a few really understood where the economy was heading. On the contrary, Bitcoin is still largely a grassroots movement so present-day peasants and workers may gain from the non-violent dismissal of fiat standard instead of trying to vote for politicians who promise to print more money for them.
Second, despite its low denomination, 50000 Reichsmark bill may be quite rare. William Guttman and Patricia Meehan in their book "Great Inflation: Germany, 1923" write:
> Harold Fraser a young English bank clerk working in Hamburg reported on the state of affairs in Germany to his London office in regular dispatches. “There is still an alarming shortage of money," he wrote on 23rd August 1923.
He also reported three weeks before
> There is now a great shortage of money and it is impossible to get more than the equivalent of £1 in any one day. This morning I was watching the huge crowd in the Deutsche Bank waiting to get money. There were so many people that queues approaching 50 people each were formed in front of each cashier. In fact, it was found necessary to have policemen regulating the crowds.
The 50000 Marks note was issued between these two dates on 9th August 1923 and likely disappeared from circulation shortly after initial issuance due to runaway inflation and the need for an even larger supply of money. Besides, Reichsbank started utilizing large quantities of older paper notes because they couldn't be used for paying bills after weeks or months of circulation.
