Obverse. Photo © NumisCorner.com
  • 2 Deutsche Mark 1957-1971, KM# 116, Germany, Federal Republic, Max Planck
  • 2 Deutsche Mark 1957-1971, KM# 116, Germany, Federal Republic, Max Planck
Description

West Germany is the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland or BRD) in the period between its creation on 23 May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990. During this Cold War era, NATO-aligned West Germany and Warsaw Pact-aligned East Germany were divided by the Inner German border. After 1961 West Berlin was physically separated from East Berlin as well as from East Germany by the Berlin Wall. This situation ended when East Germany was dissolved and its five states joined the ten states of the Federal Republic of Germany along with the reunified city-state of Berlin. With the reunification of West and East Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany, enlarged now to sixteen states, became known simply as "Germany". This period is referred to as the Bonn Republic (Bonner Republik) by historians, alluding to the interwar Weimar Republic and the post-reunification Berlin Republic.

Engraver: Karl Roth

Obverse

The coat of arms of Germany displays a black eagle with red feet, beak and tongue on a golden field. This is the Bundesadler or "Federal Eagle", formerly the Reichsadler or "Imperial Eagle". It is a re-introduction of the coat of arms of the Weimar Republic (in use 1919–1935) adopted by the Federal Republic of Germany in 1950. The current official design is due to Tobias Schwab (1887–1967) and was introduced in 1928.

The German Empire of 1871–1918 had re-introduced the medieval coat of arms of the Holy Roman Emperors, in use during the 13th and 14th centuries (a black single-headed eagle on a golden background), before the emperors adopted the double-headed eagle, beginning with Sigismund of Luxemburg in 1433. The single-headed Prussian Eagle was used as an escutcheon to represent the Prussian Kings as dynasts of the German Empire. The Weimar Republic introduced a version in which the escutcheon and other monarchical symbols were removed.

BUNDESREPUBLIK·DEUTSCHLAND·
2 D DEUTSCHE MARK
1957

Reverse

Portrait of Max Planck with inscription giving his name and the dates of his birth and death.

Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (1858–1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. Planck made many contributions to theoretical physics, but his fame as a physicist rests primarily on his role as the originator of quantum theory, which revolutionized human understanding of atomic and subatomic processes. However, his name is also known on a broader academic basis, through the renaming in 1948 of the German scientific institution, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (of which he was twice president), as the Max Planck Society (MPS). The MPS now includes 83 institutions representing a wide range of scientific directions.

The Planck constant (denoted h, also called Planck's constant) is a physical constant that is the quantum of action, central in quantum mechanics. First recognized in 1900 by Max Planck, it was originally the proportionality constant between the minimal increment of energy, E, of a hypothetical electrically charged oscillator in a cavity that contained black body radiation, and the frequency, f, of its associated electromagnetic wave.

MAX PLANCK
* 1858 - 1947 +

Edge

The "Deutschlandlied" (English: "Song of Germany") has been the national anthem of Germany since 1922. Since World War II and the fall of Nazi Germany, only the third stanza has been used as the national anthem. The stanza's beginning, "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit" ("Unity and Justice and Freedom") is considered the unofficial national motto of Germany, and is inscribed on modern German Army belt buckles and the rims of some German coins.

There are two variants for the edge:
- text readable with obverse side up
- text readable with reverse side up

EINIGKEIT UND RECHT UND FREIHEIT

2 Deutsche Mark

Max Planck

KM# 116 Jaeger# 392 Schön# 115
Characteristics
Type Commemorative Issue (Circulating)
Material Cupronickel
Weight 7 g
Diameter 26.75 mm
Thickness 1.79 mm
Shape round
Alignment Medal
Mints
Bavarian Central Mint (D)
Hamburg Mint (J)
Karlsruhe State Mint (G)
Stuttgart State Mint (F)

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