Effingers (Coming Attractions)

One to watch out for: a promised English-language translation of Gabriele Tergit's family saga Effingers, which was originally published in Germany in 1951 but only recently "rediscovered" and reissued there to general acclaim. Robert Normen has a description on the website of The German Times:

In the best way, this epic 900-page novel resembles another historic family saga: Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks. Mann’s story of four generations runs from 1835 to 1877. It may be no coincidence that Tergit’s book begins the very next year. Effingers is set against the backdrop of a changing German society steeped in the comforts of Bismarckian Prussia. Modernization and an economic boom bring affluence and changing norms, which are reflected in the contrasts between the city of Berlin and Karl’s and Paul’s small hometown in southern Germany. After World War I, anti-Semitic sentiment slowly but surely takes hold and the Effinger family must reluctantly learn that they are not the German clan they aspired to be.

NYRB Books has previously published a translation by Sophie Duvernoy of Tergit's earlier novel Käsebier Takes Berlin, and they have signed Duvernoy up for Effingers as well, though apparently no date has been announced. In the meantime, a snazzy-looking Spanish-language version has just been issued by Libros del Asteroide in Barcelona.

More information is available at The German Times.

Inflation

German postage stamps, 1923. The highest denomination here: 20,000,000,000 marks. (That one must have been for Special Delivery.) The first two rows are overprints of lower-denominated stamps.

When the money was gone

Below are some examples of notgeld (emergency money), issued c.1918-1922 by a number of German cities and other public and private entities for use as scrip due to a shortage of metal coinage. Unlike the paper money that was churned out in great quantities during the hyperinflation of a few years later, these serienscheine were issued in small denominations, and many of them are quite appealing. In my opinion all currency should have turnips or cows on it.





I don't know what the three-legged object on the back of the one below might be; it looks like a cross between a jug and a kiwi.



The following notes, issued by an private company, KVG Braunschweig, feature the buses the company operated (and still does).



I don't know what story is being alluded too on the reverse of the note above, but the following one depicts, if I'm not mistaken, the Brocken or Brocksberg in the Harz Mountains, which by legend is the gathering place of witches for their annual Walpurgisnacht convocation. A lot more fun than old George and Abe, though between the satanism and the loose clothing of some of the witches I don't envision anything like this catching on here.



The note below is from Greiffenburg -- now Gryfów Śląski in Polish Silesia -- hence the griffins.



The last one's a ringer: the hyperinflationary notgeld designed by the artists Kahn and Selesnick for their Eisbergfreistadt project.


Iliazd has an extensive online gallery of notegeld.