Młynarki

After the German invasion of Poland and the ensuing occupation, the Reichsbank decided not to introduce German currency there, as it did not want to increase the money supply.[2] Various Polish banks and credit institutions were temporarily closed, while some of their assets were nationalized by the German government. Many people lost their savings.[2][3] On 15 December 1939, Hans Frank, the governor of the General Government, an administrative unit for most of occupied Poland, passed a decree creating a new bank, the Bank of Issue in Poland (Bank Emisyjny), which began operating in April the following year .[2][4] The bank was headed by Feliks Młynarski, with the approval of the Polish government in exile.[2][1]

The official exchange rate was set at 2 złoty for 1 reichsmark.[2] The exchange system was meant to boost the German economy at the expense of the Polish one.[2] The black market exchange rate varied between three and four złotys to a reichsmark.[2]

The most famous of the notes was the 500 złoty note, the góral ("highlander" or "mountaineer") named after the image of a góral on its front.[1] The note is still popular among currency collectors. Counterfeiting of the currency was rampant.[5] The name was also reflected in one of the actions of the Polish resistance, "Operation Góral", a 1943 heist in which the insurgents took over a currency shipment worth over a million contemporary US dollars.[6][7] The 500 note was also the standard "unit of corruption"; the minimum bribe that representatives of the occupation authorities required to facilitate the carrying out of illicit activity.[8] In that role it was immortalized in the popular underground street song of Warsaw, Siekiera, motyka.[9]

The currency notes were used exclusively within the General Government, but not the Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany.[2] They were withdrawn from circulation between 1944 and 1945.[2]