This minor copper issue commemorates Prussia's crushing defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, which ended with the proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles in January 1871 — an act of deliberate humiliation conducted in the Hall of Mirrors. Baden had been among the first southern German states to side with Prussia, its forces mobilized even before the North German Confederation was formally at war. The kreuzer denomination itself was already dying; Baden's absorption into the Reich monetary system would soon replace it entirely with the pfennig-mark structure adopted empire-wide in 1873.
This minor copper issue commemorates Prussia's crushing defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, which ended with the proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles in January 1871 — an act of deliberate humiliation conducted in the Hall of Mirrors. Baden had been among the first southern German states to side with Prussia, its forces mobilized even before the North German Confederation was formally at war. The kreuzer denomination itself was already dying; Baden's absorption into the Reich monetary system would soon replace it entirely with the pfennig-mark structure adopted empire-wide in 1873.