10 Reichsmark overprint: Quittung Wiederaufbauspende

In the weeks following the American occupation of Stuttgart in April 1945, the city faced a near-total collapse of its financial infrastructure. Allied authorities had suspended Reichsmark transactions pending currency review, leaving municipal administrators scrambling for a workable medium of exchange at the local level. This overprinted receipt note — "Quittung Wiederaufbauspende," roughly a reconstruction donation receipt — was Stuttgart's improvised answer, applying a rubber stamp or typeset overprint to existing Reichsmark stock rather than commissioning new paper.

The "donation" framing was almost certainly a legal fiction to sidestep occupation regulations prohibiting unauthorized currency issuance. Genuine civic scrip from this transitional period survives in very small numbers; most were redeemed or simply discarded once Deutsche Mark infrastructure arrived.