Bidspirit auction | Means of payment from the

Means of payment from the Nazi labor camp Dora-Mittelbau - 1944 - A means of payment in the denomination of 0.01 Reichspfennig for use by prisoners in the Dora-Mittelbau camp. Series P, 1944. It was in use in the camp until April 1945. (In this denomination there were a total of three series - n, o, and p). Fine condition. By order of the WVHA (SS Economic and Administrative Main Office) dated October 28, 1944, the “Mittelbau Labor Camp” became independent, establishing the last main camp of the Nazi dictatorship period. Its construction had already begun in the autumn of 1943 as a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp, “Dora.” Within the camp operated a weapons production facility, and by May 1944, 4,910 prisoners and 2,500 German workers and civilians were employed there in the assembly of A4 rockets. The camp currency was designed by the Czech prisoners Dominik Černý (“the camp artist”) and Josef Peč, and was printed at the printing house of Theodor Müller in Nordhausen. These vouchers were used as a “bonus” as part of a new incentive system that was gradually introduced beginning in February 1944. The prisoner-printer Harry Kraus later wrote: “The printing house was located in the Königshof in Nordhausen, and we printed the money for the Dora camp. It was produced on a printing press, with two sheets at a time... The SS men supplied the watermarked paper. Every morning, they arrived with two prisoners carrying the paper and the printing plate in laundry baskets. The plate was then placed back into the machine. The operator, who fed each sheet into the printing plate, printed it and removed it again, and the printer, who checked the print, the color setting, and the numbering, were all watched by two SS men. The prisoners who brought the baskets were immediately sent away again. In the evening, two other prisoners came and took everything...”.  The former prisoner Karl Oismann later wrote in his memoirs: “In the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, I was mainly in Herzungen and worked in the tunnel as a driller. I know that kapos sometimes distributed the camp money to prisoners, but I myself never received any money. Camp money was not distributed after working hours; the kapos did so at their own discretion. The kapo of our work detail, Martin, hated me, and for this reason I did not receive any money. I also do not remember what the camp money looked like. It was said that prisoners could use this money to buy chewing tobacco and cooked beets in the canteen.” (see Das Geld des Terrors: Geld und Geldersatz in deutschen Konzentrationslagern und Gettos 1933 bis 1945 by Hans-Ludwig Grabowski, Germany, 2008, pp. 220–224). Dora-Mittelbau (also called Nordhausen, Dora-Nordhausen) - a Nazi labor camp during the Holocaust. The camp was located in the Harz Mountains in central Germany, near the city of Nordhausen. Its inmates were forced to work in the production of V-2 rockets in underground factories. Of approximately 60,000 prisoners who were subjected to forced labor in the camp, an estimated 20,000 perished. 5×6 cm. Very good condition.