The obverse features a large 3. Nordhausen city, Thuringia Land (state), central Germany. It lies on the Zorge River, at the southern slopes of the Harz Mountains, in the fertile lowland known as the Goldene Aue (“Golden Meadow”). Henry I or his father Count Otto the Illustrious built Nordhausen Castle around the year 910. In 919 Henry was crowned King of the East Frankish Empire. In 927 Henry I bequeathed Nordhausen and other places to his wife Mathilde as a “Wittum” (widow’s gift). He repeated and supplemented his donation in the “Quedlinburg House Rules” of 929. As the site of a royal castle near the older Frankish settlement of Northusen (Nordhusa), it was made a free imperial city in 1290 and accepted the Protestant Reformation in 1522. It lost its independence in 1802, when it was annexed by Prussia, forming part of Prussian Saxony until 1945. 
Reference: KM number 52