Germany P103 5 Reichsmarks 1942 Fine—WWII 3rd Reich Symbol & Aryan Youth

Banknote Characteristics

• Varieties:
  • P-186a – 7-digit serial number
  • P-186b – 8-digit serial number
• Front: Allegorical youth's head; Reichsbank insignia including swastika (bottom left)
• Back: Lion monument in front of Braunschweig Cathedral
• Color: Brown
• Watermark: Series of value numeral "5"
• Composition: Paper
• Size: 140 × 70 mm
• Issuing entity: Reichsbank
• Printer: —
• Demonetized: 20 June 1948
• Signatures: The President of the German Reichsbank (unsigned)
• Designer: Paul Scheurich
• Country: Germany
  • German Empire (1871–1918)
  • Weimar Republic (1918–1933)
  • Third Reich (1933–1945)
  • Allied-occupied Germany (1945–1949)

The Allegorical Youth: Art, Ideology, and a Blurry Line

The face on the obverse is one of the more quietly fascinating details in Third Reich numismatics. It was designed by Paul Scheurich (1883–1945), a Berlin-born sculptor and graphic artist celebrated during the Weimar era for his elegant, classically influenced figurative work — particularly in porcelain for Meissen. The figure is described officially as an "allegorical youth" rather than an explicitly racial type, rooted in the long European tradition of using idealized classical heads to represent abstract virtues like strength, prosperity, or national vitality.

That said, the line between classical allegory and Aryan racial ideology was deliberately blurred by the Nazi regime. The Third Reich systematically co-opted classical and neoclassical aesthetics — the chiseled profile, the idealized Nordic features, the absence of any ethnic ambiguity — as visual shorthand for its racial worldview. Whether Scheurich designed the figure with that ideology in mind or whether the regime simply adopted imagery that fit its aesthetic is not definitively established. What is clear is that by 1942, a youthful, idealized Germanic profile on a state-issued banknote carried unmistakable ideological weight, regardless of the artist's intent. It is a reminder that propaganda rarely announces itself — it works best when it looks like art.

The Reichsmark in Wartime Germany

By 1942, Nazi Germany was three years into a war that was consuming its economy. The Reichsmark had been the country's currency since 1924, replacing the catastrophically inflated Papiermark of the Weimar Republic. These Reichsbanknoten circulated within Germany and annexed territories including Austria and the Sudetenland, distinct from the Reichskassenscheine used in occupied territories abroad. The Reichsmark was demonetized on 20 June 1948 with the introduction of the Deutsche Mark, ending a currency that had witnessed both the depths of hyperinflation and the horrors of the Third Reich.

The Braunschweig Lion

The reverse features the Brunswick Lion — one of Germany's oldest and most iconic monuments — standing before Braunschweig Cathedral. Cast in bronze in 1166 by Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, it is considered the first large free-standing bronze sculpture of the Middle Ages in northern Europe. Its selection for this note — during the height of the Third Reich — was deliberate: a symbol of Germanic strength and medieval power, repurposed for a regime that trafficked heavily in such imagery.