In 2002, Germany, along with some other countries, changed over to the euro currency. Before that we had our Deutsche Mark (DM) and Pfennig for cents.

The woman, depicted on the 50 Pfennig coin, is from Oberursel. Her name is Gerda Jo Werner, and this is her story.

Gerda was a painter and a long-time art teacher at the local Volkshochschule (VHS)*. She was married to the sculptor Richard Martin Werner, who soon passed away in 1949, right at the time when the first German money for the Federal Republic was coined.

The ‘Bank Deutscher Länder’ association invited artists to submit designs for the new coins. The new designs should include images of Germany’s reconstruction after WWII.

In 1948, the local painter and sculptor Richard Martin Werner submitted a design showing a young woman planting an oak tree. This was to symbolize a new beginning; the change from the ruins of war to a new life full of hopes in the Federal Republic of Germany.

The young woman depicted in his design was his wife, Gerda. Werner’s design was chosen over seven other entries from well-known artists.

On 14 Feb 1949, the first 50 Pfennig coins came into circulation. The coin was viewed as the most beautiful German coin at the time, and being unusual for the only one showing a woman.

The artist was also famous for some other works, one of them the ‘Die Läuferin am Start’ (The runner at the Start Line), a plastic sculpture for the Olympic Games in 1936, for which he received a bronze medal in the arts.

When he died in 1949, he missed out on the triumph of his coin design. By the end of the DM/Pfennig era in 2001, more than 2 billion coins had been in circulation.

The 50 Pfennig woman on the coin, a local resident, died at the age of almost 90 years in Oberursel in August 2004.

I did not know about her – until she died.

* adult education center