10 Pfennig - Königsee in Thüringen

Königsee's zinc notgeld emerged in 1918 as the Imperial German war economy stripped copper and nickel from civilian circulation entirely. The Hindenburg Program had redirected base metals to shell casings and military hardware, leaving municipal governments across Thüringen scrambling to fill the change vacuum with whatever material remained available. Zinc was the default answer for dozens of small towns, though its brittleness made these pieces prone to cracking — surviving examples in undamaged condition are harder to locate than mintage figures alone would suggest.