This issue featuring Brandenburg's Sanssoucis palace is the continuation of the Federal States (Bundesländer) of 2018, which was postponed due to a change in the sequence of the Presidency based on recent population changes. This coin was minted by the German mint in Stuttgart and carries the mint mark F (not J for Hamburg as is pictured).

The two remaining Federal States will be honored in 2021 (Saxony-Anhalt) and 2022 (Thuringen).

Friedrich II (Friedrich the Great) was renowned for his modesty, epitomised in his saying “A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in”. Without a show of pomp and circumstance, but with considerable personal discipline, he guided the fate of Prussia in the eighteenth century.

Friedrich built Sanssouci palace near Potsdam in 1745 –1747 as a summer retreat. His beloved summer palace was his ideal of everyone’s wish of living without a care – Sans souci. This was not merely a summer residence and his favourite place to stay, it also became a personal sanctuary and a place where he retreated in times of difficulties to relax in the company of his dogs.

When he died, Friedrich wanted to be interred at Sanssouci Palace in a crypt on the uppermost terrace of the vineyard, close to where his much-loved greyhounds were buried. But it was many years before this wish was granted – not until his reburial there in 1991. Now, the “Philosopher of Sanssouci”, as he was popularly known, is at peace on the highest terrace of the hill.