1000 Kuna

The Nezavisna Država Hrvatska — the Ustasha puppet state established under German and Italian occupation in April 1941 — required a functional currency almost immediately upon proclamation. Giesecke & Devrient in Leipzig supplied the printing capacity the new regime lacked domestically. Ljubo Babić, a respected Croatian painter and stage designer, designed and engraved the note — an unusual pairing of fine-arts credentials with banknote work, though the collaboration was politically fraught given the circumstances of the commission.

The kuna denomination itself was a deliberate historical reference, reviving a medieval Croatian monetary term that had been dormant for centuries.