Bezirksamt Laufen issued this iron notgeld piece in 1918 as military requisitioning stripped Bavaria's copper and nickel reserves for shell casings and industrial war production. By the final year of the war, district-level administrative offices across Germany were effectively functioning as emergency mints, filling a coinage vacuum the imperial government could no longer address. Iron was the default material precisely because it had marginal strategic value compared to non-ferrous metals.
Laufen sits on the Salzach river at the Austrian border — a geographic footnote that made its local economy particularly sensitive to cross-border trade disruptions during the blockade years.
Bezirksamt Laufen issued this iron notgeld piece in 1918 as military requisitioning stripped Bavaria's copper and nickel reserves for shell casings and industrial war production. By the final year of the war, district-level administrative offices across Germany were effectively functioning as emergency mints, filling a coinage vacuum the imperial government could no longer address. Iron was the default material precisely because it had marginal strategic value compared to non-ferrous metals.
Laufen sits on the Salzach river at the Austrian border — a geographic footnote that made its local economy particularly sensitive to cross-border trade disruptions during the blockade years.