bavarikon4UPaper money in Croatia
Croatia had been under the control of the Habsburg Empire since 1527. After the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918, it was absorbed into the Kingdom of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs or the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
The Austro-Hungarian Bank’s banknotes initially circulated in Yugoslavia. They were stamped by the Ministry of Finance. These notes were eventually exchanged for new Ministry of Finance state notes. In 1920, the National Bank of Serbia was transformed by law into the National Bank of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. It issued banknotes in the “dinar” currency, also introduced in 1920. The name of the bank was changed to the National Bank of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. With the occupation of Yugoslavia by German troops in 1941, the National Bank was liquidated.
Germany and Italy occupied the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941. The King and the government fled to London into exile. The national territory was fragmented: while Slovenia was divided between Germany, Italy and Hungary, Serbia remained militarily occupied as a vassal state. Croatia was united with Bosnia and Herzegovina as the “Independent State of Croatia” under the leadership of the dictator Ante Pavelić (1889-1959) and his fascist Ustasha movement. The Independent State of Croatia issued state paper money, and the State Bank also issued banknotes in 1943.
Resistance against fascism was already forming in 1941. Partisan units emerged in several regions. The Anti-Fascist Council of the National Liberation of Yugoslavia was founded in 1942 as the supreme body of the movement. Other national bodies followed, such as for Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1943. They issued paper money themselves, presumably to function as a means of payment within the movement and to finance the costs of the resistance.
After the end of the war, the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia was founded in 1945 with the six constituent republics of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. Initially, the state issued banknotes, but from 1946 onwards, the specially established National Bank of the Federative People’s Republic of Yugoslavia issued banknotes.
>> This collection is part of the holdings of "Paper money in Europe" of the Giesecke+Devrient Stiftung Geldscheinsammlung (Giesecke+Devrient foundation: collections of bank notes).