Emergency Money

A landmark art historical study of German Notgeld, the emergency money produced during World War I, and the hyperinflation that followed.

Emergency Money is the first art historical study of Germany’s emergency money, Notgeld. Issued during World War I and the tumultuous interwar period, these wildly artful banknotes featured landscapes, folk figures, scenes of violence and humor, and even inflation itself in the form of figures staring into empty purses or animals defecating coins. Until now, art historians have paid Notgeld scant attention, but Wilkinson looks closely at these amusing, often disturbing, artifacts and their grim associations to cast new light on the Weimar Republic’s visual culture, as well as the larger relationship between art and money.

As Wilkinson shows, Germany’s early twentieth-century economic crisis was also a crisis of culture. Retelling the period’s gripping story through thematic investigations into prevalent Notgeld motifs, Wilkinson illuminates how the vexed relationship between aesthetic value and exchange value was an inextricable part of everyday life.

A landmark contribution to our understanding of twentieth-century Germany, Emergency Money brings together art, economics, critical theory, and media theory to create a book for our own inflationary moment, as the world’s new materialisms confront the specter of this older, more fundamental materialism.Introduction: Full Pockets, Empty Signs 1

1 Land 23
2 Work 67
3 Spooks 115
4 Crisis 169

Epilogue: Necrometabolism 223
Acknowledgments 233
Notes 235
Bibliography 251
Image Credits 262
Index 263Included in the New York Times's Best Art Books of 2024

"During and after World War I, Germany underwent enormous levels of inflation, which led the government to issue promissory notes well into the trillions of German marks. Depression and fascism were up ahead, but a less-known byproduct is explored in Tom Wilkinson’s unmissable monograph. Faithless in government money, provinces and private interests took it upon themselves to issue functional currency emblazoned with truly bizarre or eye-catching graphics. (Sound familiar?) Many are reprinted here in vibrant color. Wenzel Hablik’s suave and chunky designs from 1921 are a highlight. Interspersed are the Weimar collage artists — among them Kurt Schwitters and George Scholz — who recycled some of these cynical designs into art of a new kind."
—The New York Times, Arts

"Wilkinson manages to encompass economics, art, architecture, design and social history in a book buzzing with vivid images."
—Financial Times

“A highly interesting and thought-provoking contribution to the history of German inflation, Weimar’s visual culture, and the art world’s infatuation with money.”
—Journal of Modern HistoryTom Wilkinson is an art historian who specializes in German visual culture and modern architecture. He teaches at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and is History Editor of the Architectural Review. His first book was Bricks and Mortals: Ten Great Buildings and the People They Made.