Catalog
1 Pfennig Landau; PoW Camp
| Issuer | II. Bayerisches Armeekorps (Landau Prisoner of War Camp) |
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| Year | |
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| Currency | Papiermark (1914-1923) |
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| Obverse description | Stamp-format voucher with perforated edges, printed in brown on plain paper. The central vignette consists of the Bavarian lozenge-shield surmounted by a royal crown and flanked by laurel branches, with the legend II. BAYR. A.K. at the top and the denomination 1 PFG. at the foot. A bold diagonal overprint reading LANDAU in black Gothic lettering cuts across the entire design. |
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| Reverse description | Reverse entirely blank, with no text, vignette, or security device on the unadorned plain paper. |
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| Comments |
Landau, in the Palatinate, housed one of the German military's smaller prisoner-of-war camp currencies during the First World War. The II. Bayerisches Armeekorps administered a network of camps across Bavaria and its occupied territories, and internal scrip of this kind was issued to prevent prisoners from accumulating Reichsmark currency that could fund escape attempts or black-market trade with guards.
At 22 × 16 mm, this is among the smallest pieces of paper money produced for any German PoW camp system — barely larger than a postage stamp. Handling attrition alone accounts for why surviving examples are almost invariably damaged.