Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1 Pfennig Holzminden; Officer PoW Camp
| Issuer | Offizier-Gefangenenlager Holzminden |
|---|---|
| Year | 1917 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Camb#3128 |
| Obverse description | Printed in dark red on light pink paper, the note carries the camp name "Offizier-Gefangenenlager Holzminden" at the top, with denomination corner cartouches reading "1 Pfennig". A central guilloche oval vignette frames the value inscription "Ein Pfennig" in bold letterpress. Date "im September 1917" and a lagergeld validity clause appear below, with a serial number at lower left. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Offizier-Gefangenenlager Holzminden Ein Pfennig 1 Pfennig Holzminden, im September 1917. Dieses Lagergeld gilt nur als Zahlungsmittel im Lager. Einlösung erfolgt nur durch das Offizier-Gefangenenlager Holzminden Scheine, bei denen die Nummer ganz oder teilweise fehlt, werden nicht eingelöst. J. C. König & Ebhardt in Hannover |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
Holzminden was arguably the most notorious British officer prisoner-of-war camp in Germany during the First World War — a former barracks at Holzminden-on-the-Weser administered with deliberate harshness by Hauptmann Karl Niemeyer, whose cruelty became the subject of formal Allied complaints. The camp's internal scrip was a practical necessity: isolating prisoners financially from the wider German economy was as much a control mechanism as a convenience.
König & Ebhardt were a well-established Hanover printing and bookbinding firm, not specialist security printers — which shows in the modest production values of the series. Holzminden is also remembered for the July 1918 tunnel escape, the largest British officer breakout of the entire war.