Four notes (one 50 Pfennig and three 1 Mark notes) tell the famous, tragic, and historically documented saga of Oswald Barthel, locally known as Die lange Schicht (The Long Shift).
In the year 1508, a young, well-loved miner named Oswald Barthel prepared to head deep into the Sauberg mine. The 50 Pfennig note shows him saying goodbye to his heartbroken fiancée, Anna, before walking out to what would be his final shift. Because the deep tunnel they were digging was incredibly unstable and threatened by water, the miners gathered before the shift to confess their sins and take the Holy Sacrament. The art depicts the somber miners kneeling before a crucifix inside the mine chapel (bottom left).
While working deep underground, the timber supports cracked and the ceiling violently caved in. While his comrades narrowly escaped, Oswald was trapped and buried alive beneath tons of rock. The dramatic, dark etching captures his final, claustrophobic moments as the mountain collapses around him (bottom middle).
The bottom right 1 Mark note shows the climax of the legend. In 1568—exactly 60 years later—miners clearing out an old, abandoned section of the mine broke through a wall. To their absolute shock, they found Oswald's body. Because he had been entombed in mineral-rich, acidic vitriol water (iron sulfate), his body, clothes, and leather mining cap were completely preserved and uncorrupted, looking as though he had died only hours before. Three elderly town men who remembered him from 1508 were brought down to identify him, and he was finally given a proper burial.
Besides the legend of the long shift, one of the 50 Pfennig notes also depicts Karl Stülpner (1762–1841), the legendary "Robin Hood of the Ore Mountains." He was a real historical figure—a brilliant marksman, poacher, and deserter who became a folk hero for outsmarting the heavy-handed military authorities and giving his hunted game to the impoverished local peasants. He is shown here resting against a tree next to a shot stag at the Greifensteine, a famous local rock formation.
The remaining two 50 Pfennig notes commemorate the 500th anniversary (which took place in 1907) of Ehrenfriedersdorf officially being granted its city charter in the year 1407, and the discovery of tin. According to legend, the massive tin deposits of the area were discovered in the Middle Ages when wild boars (Sauen) rooted up the forest floor and exposed rich veins of tin ore. This gave the town's most famous mining mountain its name: the Sauberg (Boar Mountain).