Comments on "Coinage of the German Democratic Republic"

[<k>]

I did notice the apparently dateless GDR 1 DM coin 1956, of which I posted an image. Was that an error coin?

Here below you see one with the date.

[chrisild]

Was that an error coin?

Could well be. I just checked a catalog (the Jaeger), and it does not mention that. But your "undated" coin seems to be well preserved apart from that, so I don't think it is worn ...

One more comment on the political structure of the country. The Deutsches Reich consisted of several states (Länder), with Prussia being the biggest and dominant one. Right after WW2 the Allies either confirmed the existing states or formed new ones; Prussia was dissolved. In 1952 however the GDR did away with its five relatively young Länder (states) and replaced them with Bezirke (districts) that had fewer competences. There were 14 districts, later East Berlin got a de facto district status too. In July 1990 the GDR parliament decided to re-introduce the Länder.

Christian

[stef]

A funny fact: the coin used to illustrate the mint mark in Reply #17 (1 Pfennig 1968) is minted in Leningrad.

[chrisild]

Right; the Schön catalog says that part of the 1 Pf 1968 mintage was made in Leningrad ... and why? Because the Berlin mint was busy making circulation coins for Myanmar. But that one type and year is the only such case.

Christian

[<k>]

My thanks to Christian, incidentally, for providing the text for the main topic. I was unsure how to approach it. I think the idea of mainly reserving the political comment for this topic here is a sound one. In my topics about fascism, I included a lot of images and text to describe the regimes, in order to explain them and give a feel for the period. The GDR, however, is not a subject I am hugely well informed about.

[<k>]

20th anniversary of the GDR.  Meeting of Young Socialists.

A more modern-looking propaganda poster from 1969.

[<k>]

5 Mark, 1969. Circulating commemorative: 20th anniversary of the founding of the GDR.

I looked at numista and saw that this coin also came in a standard copper-nickel version. I asked Christian about this, and here is his reply:


The reddish type is the regular version (mintage about 50 million). Problem was, according to the Schön catalog, that the government bulletin merely said the composition should be copper and nickel. So the mint made this "red" coin (Cu90 Ni10) but also a silverish variety - your normal Cu75 Ni25 mix. The latter had a mintage of about 12,700 only, but as it complied with the law, it was actually legal tender.

As for the test "coins" that the mint made in this case (not legal tender, very few only), they tried aluminum, brass (Cu63 Zn37), some nickel-plated steel pieces, some Cu62 Zn20 Ni18 pieces, and others. I would focus on the reddish coin as that is the "regular" one.

By the way, the GDR made many more variants of its collector coins than the Federal Republic. Some were actually issued, others "happened" to "accidentally" leave the mint. Helmut Caspar wrote, in a book about the history of the Berlin mint, that this was partly done intentionally. Hard to tell who would actually profit from such deals.

[<k>]

The beginning and the end of the Berlin Wall:

'People were crying as they built it around us': The day the wall went up

How a mistake in a press statement led to the fall of the Berlin Wall

[<k>]

What did this coin and its design suggest to East Germans? "There is no escape!"  - Maybe. Or perhaps: "THIS belongs to US!"



At the time the coin was issued, the scene no longer looked as it did on the design, because the Wall got in the way.

Below is a very poor scan that I made years ago of a rather poor photo that I took in 1979. However, you see what I mean.

[<k>]

The GDR National Anthem. Quite a stirring piece of music, actually. And no, I'm not a communist. 

[Big_M]

What did this coin and its design suggest to East Germans? "There is no escape!"  - Maybe. Or perhaps: "THIS belongs to US!"



At the time the coin was issued, the scene no longer looked as it did on the design, because the Wall got in the way.

Below is a very poor scan that I made years ago of a rather poor photo that I took in 1979. However, you see what I mean.

Well the wall actually got behind the scene.

[chrisild]

The Wall was in the way only if you looked from the West - at the Quadriga's rears so to say. But the Brandenburg Gate was not freely accessible from Central/East Berlin either - you could look at it (and the wall and security strip were basically behind it) but apart from guards and other officials, people could not get close. (View from the East). The gate was and is a widely known symbol of the city, so having it on a circulation coin underlined the text "Berlin - Capital of the GDR".

By the way, in 1961 Billy Wilder made a great movie (comedy) called One, Two, Three. It was filmed before the GDR regime built the wall but released a little later. So the scenes where some protagonist would merely be checked at the gate (or even race through it!) were obsolete by the time people could actually see the movie. A few explanatory comments were added at the beginning, but the timing was just unfortunate.

Will try and add a few comments about GDR commemorative coins later this weekend.

Christian

[<k>]

The Wall was in the way only if you looked from the West - at the Quadriga's rears so to say.

We're at cross purposes here. The Wall was still visible behind the Brandenburg Gate. The coin design chose to show no background to the Gate - an idealised view.

[chrisild]

Well, look at the photo in the "View from the East" link. Of course you know that the Berlin Wall is there, but it was certainly not as visible as from the West. (Keep in mind that from East B. you could not simply walk into the "secured" area where the Brandenburg Gate was, but had to keep distance.) Also, on coins - not just from the GDR - many prominent buildings are depicted without "surrounding" elements.

Christian

[<k>]

A pattern version of the 50 pfennig first issued in 1949 exists.

Below:

Top - pattern version. © Fritz Rudolf Künker GmbH & Co. KG, Osnabrück and Lübke & Wiedemann KG, Leonberg.

Bottom - issued coin.