Krupp's Konsum-Anstalt was the company-run cooperative store system that supplied Krupp workers with food, clothing, and household goods — a massive internal economy operating within the walls of the Essen steelworks. By 1915, wartime metal shortages had gutted the German small-change supply, and hundreds of industrial firms issued their own Kleingeldersatz to keep internal commerce moving. Krupp's scrip is among the more credible examples: the Konsum-Anstalt had genuine retail infrastructure behind it, not merely a paymaster's promise.
Redeemable only at company stores, these notes never entered general circulation and were periodically recalled and reissued as worker rolls shifted with wartime production demands.
Krupp's Konsum-Anstalt was the company-run cooperative store system that supplied Krupp workers with food, clothing, and household goods — a massive internal economy operating within the walls of the Essen steelworks. By 1915, wartime metal shortages had gutted the German small-change supply, and hundreds of industrial firms issued their own Kleingeldersatz to keep internal commerce moving. Krupp's scrip is among the more credible examples: the Konsum-Anstalt had genuine retail infrastructure behind it, not merely a paymaster's promise.
Redeemable only at company stores, these notes never entered general circulation and were periodically recalled and reissued as worker rolls shifted with wartime production demands.