Formal Components and Designations

Since industrialisation, banknotes had increasingly been used in the German Reich. From 1910, they had been legal tender, i.e. they had to be accepted for payment by all public and private banks. Previously, banknotes had been mainly a promise to pay. The issuing bank had to be able to exchange the paper money for coins on presentation of the note. Even before the introduction of banknotes as legal tender, they had a uniform formal structure.

The structure included the designation as banknote, the name of the issuer, information on the nominal and currency, place and date of issue, signatures of the representatives of the issuing office and the control number. The formal structure of the emergency money was based on imperial banknotes. The analogue use of formal data, substrate and size (paper, rectangular) provided continuity with the familiar means of payment.

In many cases, emergency money was not a legally legitimated means of payment. Therefore it is usually referred to as a "voucher". Other terms were "pay cheque" or "cheque", "emergency cash replacement", "money order" and "loan bank bill ”. Small change issued between 1914 and 1918 is often called "war money". The terms "bill" or "banknote" were not used throughout to rule out any confusion with imperial banknotes. The term "emergency money" was also avoided.