Polish mark

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Polish mark ( marka polska, abbreviation: mp. ) Was the national currency in the so-called Regency Kingdom of Poland between 1916 and 1918 and in the Second Polish Republic between 1918 and 1924. On April 14, 1924 (after the establishment of a new central bank, Bank Polski ) the currency unit, which had become worthless as a result of hyperinflation , was replaced by the gold-backed zloty , which was introduced at an exchange rate of 1 zloty = 1,800,000 Polish marks. 1 dollar was now worth 5.18 zloty.

Timeline of the history of the Polish mark

  • 1916: On November 5th, an independent Kingdom of Poland was proclaimed under a Regency Council on the territory of the former Congress Kingdom by the occupying powers Germany and Austria-Hungary.
  • 1916: On December 9th, the head of the "Imperial German civil administration for Poland on the left of the Vistula" ( later: Imperial German civil administration in the Generalgouvernement of Warsaw ) Wolfgang von Kries founded a Polish national bank , the "Polish State Credit Institution " ( Polska Krajowa Kasa Pożyczkowa ) which was given the right to issue a new currency, the Marka Polska (Polish Mark). The German Reichsbank guaranteed the issue of up to 1 billion marks.
  • 1917: The printing of a second series of banknotes in denominations of 1/2 Mark, 1 Mark, 2 Mark, 5 Mark, 10 Mark, 20 Mark, 50 Mark, 100 Mark and 1000 Mark begins. All banknotes show the Polish white eagle in a red field.
  • 1918: On September 7th, the new Polish government took over the management of the "Landeskreditanstalt". The Polish mark was temporarily retained as the national currency. Up to the armistice on November 11, 1918, a total of 880 million Polish marks had been issued. At the beginning of 1919, simple banknotes were issued as an interim solution by the Polish state credit institution; the German template of a 500 mark note was also used.

  • Series under German administration

  • Series under German administration

  • second German banknote series, 1917

  • second German banknote series, 1917

  • Polish interim series, May 17, 1919

  • Polish interim series, February 15, 1919

  • Polish banknote series from 23 August 1919

  • Polish banknote series from 23 August 1919

  • Zloty banknotes after April 14, 1924

  • Zloty banknotes after April 14, 1924

  • 1919: On August 23, new banknotes from the Polish national credit institution appeared. The banknotes with the denominations of 1, 20 and 500 mp show the portrait of Queen Hedwig I , the banknotes with the denominations of 5, 10, 100 and 1000 mp show the portrait of Tadeusz Kościuszko . At the beginning of 1920, banknotes of 1/2 mp with Kościuszko and 5000 mp with Queen Hedwig and Kościuszko also appeared. At that time there were 5 billion marks in circulation.
  • 1922: Due to the inflation, the banknote of 10,000 marks appeared in March and one of 50,000 marks in October. There were 207 billion marks in circulation.
  • 1923: Due to rising inflation, banknotes with a value of 100,000, 250,000, 500,000 and 1 million marks were issued, and finally at the end of this year also those with a value of 5 and 10 million marks.
1 US dollar cost in these years:
1919 90 marks
1921 6,000 marks
May 1923 52,000 marks
July 1923 140,000 marks
Early November 1923  2,000,000 marks
Late November 1923  5,000,000 marks
January 1924  9,300,000 marks

The minting of coins was planned, but was never realized due to inflation. There is only one trial coin of 50 marks from 1923.

  • 1924: Inflation ended on April 14, 1924 with the establishment of Bank Polski and the introduction of the new currency, the zloty. For national reasons, the first series of zloty notes was dated February 28, 1919.

Other currencies

Mark ( Marka , not Polish ) was also the planned currency in the former province of Posen after the separation from Prussia in December 1918. The project, which involved issuing 1-, 2-, 5-, 10-, 20-, 50- and 100-mark bills provided by the “Bank for West Poland” (because initially the customs border between the province of Poznan and the rest of Poland was to be maintained), was not implemented due to protests by the Warsaw central government. The banknotes, designed in the spirit of Art Nouveau , show a stylized peasant couple. Today only three 50-mark notes of the entire issue have been preserved.

literature

  • Bogdan von Hutten-Czapski : Sixty Years of Politics and Society , I – II, Berlin 1936
  • T. Kalkowski: Tysiąc lat monety polskiej , Kraków 1981
  • P. Zaremba: Historia dwudziestolecia 1918–1939 , I – II, Paris 1981