Overhaul administrative divisions of German notgelds [solved - misunderstanding]

Administrative divisions of the Weimar Republic

Analysis of the current distribution of Numista issuers for German notgeld:
 

I would like to point out that I do not know the subject well, I do not speak German but the classification of German notgelds does not convince me. There were numerous discussions about German notgelds organisation, notably in the thread “Banknote currencies: German Notgeld” of the referees forum. I haven't read all discussions from members who know German politics much better than me, but I could see that I am not the only one frustrated with the current classification.

The majority of notgelds were issued between 1917 and 1920 with the 1918 revolution in the middle, which causes a difficulty because coins issued in 1917 and 1919 can have the same Funk# reference. In this case Numista places the 1919 coin with that of 1917 under the German Empire.
In the case where the coin was only issued in 1919, it is classified in “federal states” whereas these federal states will only appear with the federal republic after the Second World War.

The Weimar Republic takes over all the previous states of the empire so, in my opinion, it is not necessary to separate the classification of notgelds before and after 1918. 

We artificially create complexity where at that time the revolution did not have any consequence on the type of notgelds issued by cities and states .

39 current divisions on Numista, while 22 states, 3 cities and Alsace would be sufficient plus provinces of Prussia.

But worse, the current administrative divisions lead to many improbabilities. 

I don't have many notgelds but each time I ask myself a lot of questions in which category I will place it where it should be simple:

- 10 Pfennig - City of Zweibrücken (Federal state of Bavaria) [Stadt, Pfalz] Currently located in Rhineland-Palatinate.
Oh ! Zweibrücken is next to the Rhine so not in the current Federal state of Bavaria, it was in the Rhenish Bavaria, so the state of Bavaria will be separate in Bavaria and Rhenish Bavaria.

- 10 Pfennig - City of Oberstein (State of Oldenburg) [Stadt, Oldenburg-Birkenfeld].
What is that Stadt, [Oldenburg-Birkenfeld] ? Is it just to indicate that Oberstein is next to Birkenfeld? So you should also indicate the Principality of Lübeck: Stadt, [Oldenburg-Birkenfeld-Principality of Lübeck].

So my recommendation is to split german notgelds in:

Bavaria
Rhenan Bavaria
Prussia
Saxony
Etc…
Based on the list of States of the German Empire and subdivisions of the kingdom of Prussia, and split Bavaria, please we are not all expert in german history …
 

No more unuseful split in 1918!
And forget about “federal state”, just add “state” nevermind if it was a Duchy a Kingdom of a free state after 1918, what is sure is that they were not qualified as “federal states”!

From my perspective, for Notgeld sections we should use current administrative areas like lander just to help scrolling the long list of municipalities. We should not try to sort by past areas.

Its what we did in French Notgeld (using current names of Departements just to sort cities). It is also what we are doing with Spanish notgeld divided in Provinces.

The modern Länder are not the best basis here. A better choice would be the states that existed in 1918 and continued into the Weimer Republic. There were later mergers but mostly after the notgeld ceased to be produced.

Compendium

From my perspective, for Notgeld sections we should use current administrative areas like lander just to help scrolling the long list of municipalities. We should not try to sort by past areas.

Its what we did in French Notgeld (using current names of Departements just to sort cities). It is also what we are doing with Spanish notgeld divided in Provinces.

I understand your concern to simplify the geographical and political divisions of Germany but unlike France, there was a major overhaul of the political subdivision in Germany at the end of the Second World War.
 

In France departments have not changed since Napoleon. Only a name change here and there. 

“Low” was negatively connoted: Low = Loser = poor, so the impacted departments changed their name: “Basse Seine” became “Seine maritime”, “Basse Loire” changed to “Loire Atlantique”, “Basse Alpes” was renamed “Alpes de Haute Provence”. Amazing Low/High 😊
 

In Germany, it is the pleasure of the numismatist to discover fragmented states such as the state of Oldenburg or Bavaria and Rhenish Bavaria. And if a collector is neither interested in history nor in geography, it is because in general he only collects euros: ADFGJ, yay I have the complete set!

So, please, let's keep a minimum of historical consistency and for the notgelds let's apply the political subdivisions of the time.

Hello,

The Weimar Republic takes over all the previous states of the empire so, in my opinion, it is not necessary to separate the classification of notgelds before and after 1918. 

but with modifications over time. So what do we take as basis? German empire or Weimar Rep. ? In each case you will create errors 

But worse, the current administrative divisions lead to many improbabilities. 

Frontiers move. For exemple, Strasbourg use to be german. Similarly, Zweibrücken was bavarian in the past. 

If we only use modern frontiers to classify all coins, we do not need all the categories available on Numista.

For Oldenburg, if you refer to the note : Issuing body: [Stadt, Oldenburg-Birkenfeld]. It's a reclict from a past classification.

And forget about “federal state”, 

The list of states is based on the administrative structure of the german empire (up to 1918):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Prussia#/media/File:Karte_Deutsches_Reich,_Verwaltungsgliederung_1900-01-01.png

As you can see at the botom of the picture, the States are noted as “Bundesstaaten” so, ‘federal states’ is not wrong and the political structure was ‘federal’. Not exactly like today but similar. 

Compendium : We should not try to sort by past areas.

This would be in complete opposition to what is currently in use on the Numista site. 

Compendium : Its what we did in French Notgeld (using current names of Departements just to sort cities)

see : https://en.numista.com/forum/topic95821.html

Posted: 17-May-2020, 06:27 am

expl:

The French Notgeld are divided like this:
-- French Notgeld
------ Aude, Department of
------------ Aude, Department of
------------ Carcassonne, Commune of
...

The Austrian Notgeld:
-- Austrian Notgeld
------ Lower Austria, Federal State of
------------ Göttweig, Abbey of
------------ Krems an der Donau, Market town of
------------ Lower Austria, Federal State of
------------ Martinsberg, Municipality of
------------ Melk, District of
------------ Mödling, City of
...

I suppose Germany should go like this:
-- German Notgeld
------ Hesse, State of
------------ Alsfeld, City of
------------ Dieburg, District of

I don't know what we have to change as it's the same for France and Austria. 

My conclusion is : The classification of german states from 1914-1924 is not simple - I agree, but simplification is not a solution if you want to classify correctly the coins in Numista. In any case we are intensifying the classification rather than reducing it : Issuing authority , Ruling authority, Issuing entity , Currency, etc etc . Now, everything is managed now by drop down listings. 

Changing the structure once more means also again a lot of work. We spent a lot of time to create this organisation. Changing the structure now to something based on undefined criteria is not a good idea and opens the discussion to endless possiblities. Currently, we use the historical context that can be verified on wikipedia etc. 

I personally  have no problem to classify my collection (more than 1000 notgelds). I use the Funck ref. and the Menzel grouping by type for private ng, POW ng, etc.

 PS: don't forget that this organisational structure is also used by the 9000 notgeld banknotes and not only for the 3700 coins. 

By coincidence, I am a German native speaker and historician and we already had a long discussion about how to organize German Notgeld here at the catalog. 

Our decision was to use the administrative structure as it was back then for two reasons: first - it is fixed, will not change anymore, whereas today's administrative structure changes from time to time, so it is not a fixed system. Second - thats the logic we use for all the other parts of Numista too, so Roman Empire coins are Roman empire coins, even if they were struck in what is Belgium, Croatia or Cyprus today but no one would categorize them under Cyprus etc. Same with the German States, you will find those coins under Trier, Pfalz, Birkenfeld, Wied, Nassau or whatever they were and not under “Rheinland-Pfalz”. 

I think search is still easy as you can just type in the city name (“Zweibrücken”) and the system will show you all the Zweibrücken money we already have. If you are not sure where to put new entries, you can just add them as “German Notgeld” in general and the referees will specify then where it exactly belongs. 

Another point that stands against using current administrative division is that the area of the German Empire belongs to Germany, Denmark, Belgium, France, Poland, Lithuania and Russia today, whereas France is France and Spain is Spain since centuries.

I am delighted that this subject interests so many members, much more knowledgeable than me in German history 😊

The majority (apart from Compendium) is in favor of sticking with the administrative divisions of the time.
I completely agree with following the political divisions of the time, especially since it is not very difficult. 

My subject is mainly not to turn everything upside down after the revolution of 1918!

katermurr

 

And forget about “federal state”, 

The list of states is based on the administrative structure of the german empire (up to 1918):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Prussia#/media/File:Karte_Deutsches_Reich,_Verwaltungsgliederung_1900-01-01.png

As you can see at the botom of the picture, the States are noted as “Bundesstaaten” so, ‘federal states’ is not wrong and the political structure was ‘federal’. Not exactly like today but similar. 

Exactly, do not create a new entity classed under “federal state” after 1918
When we use the term “federal” it still has strong connotations of the end of the Second World War.

I don't have many Notgelds coins and I respectfully bow down to those who have hundreds! For the banknotes I am a little more circumspect because it seems that there are lots of them which have never circulated, which were only issued for collectors, a bit like the Bulgarian stamps.

To clarify my point:

- For Bavaria, no change in 1918. I just proposed separating Rhenish Bavaria to help the ignorant, but this is not essential.

- For Hesse, I see wiki: Province of Hesse-Nassau (1868–1944). Do we need to separate "Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau" and “Federal state of Hesse” ?

May be there is a reason but this is really reserved for specialists! 

In addition there are coins from 1917 in the “Federal state of Hesse” and coins from 1920 in the “Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau”.
I say, there is still something fishy...
No more divisions! comrades, demand a United Hesse!⚔️

- Saxony: I’ve got a very nice porcelain coin from 1921 classified as “federal state of Saxony” while some others are from ND (1916) or ND (1917). What is the need of the “Prussian province of Saxony”, where you can find as well coins from 1921.
It’s just a mess…
 

I could go on for a long time even though I only got 25 notgelds...

In conclusion, I propose to 

- keep the administrative divisions of the time and remove the unnecessary and sometimes false divisions around the date of 1918

- delete the term "federal state" since before 1918 and after this date, the states were supposed to be federal (which was wrong of course, a bit like the term "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" 🤪) due to the fact that the term “federal” was mainly used afeter WWII

It's not complex and it will simplify the Numista classification.

Sorry, the idea that "Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau" and “Federal state of Hesse”  or Saxony like this and Saxony like that can be grouped is the same like grouping “Seine-Maritime” and “Seine-et-Marne” : it's all the same, it's "Seine" and so we can reduce the number of départements for France - mixing ‘pommes’ et ‘poires’. 

katermurr

Sorry, the idea that "Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau" and “Federal state of Hesse”  or Saxony like this and Saxony like that can be grouped is the same like grouping “Seine-Maritime” and “Seine-et-Marne” : it's all the same, it's "Seine" and so we can reduce the number of départements for France - mixing ‘pommes’ et ‘poires’. 

and get “Calvados”?

katermurr

Sorry, the idea that "Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau" and “Federal state of Hesse”  or Saxony like this and Saxony like that can be grouped is the same like grouping “Seine-Maritime” and “Seine-et-Marne” : it's all the same, it's "Seine" and so we can reduce the number of départements for France - mixing ‘pommes’ et ‘poires’. 

Lol you're right 😃a bit more complex than I thought

Yet, nethertheless, I don't like "federal state", it brings confusion compared to “State” or “Constituant state”

I close the discussion.