1 Mark Hann. Münden; PoW Camp

Hann. Münden was an officer prisoner-of-war camp — Offizierslager, not a common soldiers' camp — and the distinction mattered enormously for camp currency. Officer prisoners under the Hague Conventions were entitled to pay commensurate with their rank, which created a genuine internal economy requiring a reliable medium of exchange. These linen-backed issues were the camp's practical answer to that obligation.

Canvas or linen substrates appear across several German PoW camp issues from 1916–17, typically when paper stocks were disrupted by wartime shortages. The material survives handling better than thin wartime paper but is prone to fraying at the edges — damaged corners are the rule, not the exception, on existing examples.