By CoinWeek ….
In 1967, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (otherwise known as East Germany) created a new design for the 10 mark coin that commemorated the life and heroism of Dr. Theodor Neubauer, a teacher and leftist organizer who was an important figure in the anti-fascist resistance to the Nazi regime within Germany itself. Twenty-three sample pieces were minted but the coin never entered regular circulation.
Because of the rarity of the issue and the coin’s overall aesthetic appeal, specimens on the market tend to attract specialty collectors of world coins and ensure high demand. And right now,
Beutler Münzen und Edelmetalle (Beutler Coins and Precious Metals) is offering a Brilliant Uncirculated (MS65 or higher) example online at MA-Shops.com.
Who Was Theodor Neubauer?
Theodor Neubauer was born into a middle-class family in 1890 in Ermschwerdt, Germany. Studying history at college, he became a teacher not long after graduating in 1913. With the commencement of World War I, Neubauer joined the army but like a substantial number of German veterans of the Great War, his outlook on Germany and the world had been forever altered. He soon became politically active in left-leaning causes, and eventually joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). He was elected to the German Reichstag in 1924 and served in the national government until 1933 when Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist (Nazi) Party finally consolidated power.
Neubauer was arrested in August of that year, and was held in multiple concentration camps until he was freed in 1939. He began to form a resistance movement in 1942, working with fellow anti-fascists regardless of political inclinations. Pamphlets produced by the organization centered around him broke through the lies and obfuscation of Nazi propaganda by revealing to the German people facts about Nazi war crimes abroad and at home – including the obliteration of Europe’s Jewish population in what would come to be called the Holocaust.
Neubauer was arrested again in 1943 and executed by the Nazis in 1945, before Germany’s surrender.
About the Design
The obverse features a left-facing head of Theodor Neubauer. The inscription DR. THEODOR NEUBAUER arcs around the top half of the coin while a sprig of laurel with seven berries cradles the downward point of his neck. The whole portrait is done in a somewhat stern, socialist realist style that for the most part does justice to the intensity of the man himself–with the exception of the eyes, which, by lacking pupils and irises, do not convey the sharp and fiery intelligence of the real thing.
The reverse features the national emblem of East Germany, which consists of a compass superimposed over a hammer surrounded by a ring of rye. A ribbon or banner (which is usually colored the same as the German flag in other media) is intertwined among the bottom of the stalks of rye. The hammer represents the workers, the compass represents educated labor, and the rye represents the farmers of East Germany. The inscription DEUTSCHE DEMOKRATISCHE REPUBLIK encircles the emblem, a dot separating each word from the next.
Because it is a design sample and the coin never saw mass production, it is missing a denomination and date.
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About MA-Shops
MA-Shops is an internet marketplace headquartered in Europe. MA-Shops has assembled a network of reputable coin dealers – both large and small – onto one, easy-to- use platform to sell coins, paper currency, medals, military orders and stamps directly to the collector. Founded by German engineer Joachim Schwiening in 2005, MA- Shops is now the leading ”online collector mall” worldwide. Browsing through the site quickly reveals how wide and variegated the selection from MA-Shops and its associated dealers really is. In recent months, Schwiening and MA-Shops have made a concerted push into the American market.
