1 Pfennig Klostergutsverwaltung Ettal

Ettal Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in the Bavarian Alps, issued this single-Pfennig note in 1917 as part of Germany's broader Notgeld crisis — the wartime coin shortage had grown severe enough that even a remote monastic estate needed paper substitutes for the smallest denominations. The Klostergutsverwaltung, meaning the estate management rather than the abbey itself in any ecclesiastical sense, was the issuing authority; the monastery ran substantial agricultural and commercial operations, and small-change tokens were a practical necessity for daily transactions with workers and tenants.

J. P. Himmer of Augsburg printed widely for Bavarian Notgeld issuers during this period. The official stamp served as the primary authentication measure — typical of low-denomination emergency issues where elaborate security printing was neither justified nor economical.