Lauban issued this iron notgeld piece in 1918 as the German imperial economy buckled under wartime metal requisitioning — copper, nickel, and zinc had been systematically stripped from civilian coinage since 1915 to feed munitions production, forcing municipalities across Silesia to improvise their own emergency issues. The town, now Lubań in southwestern Poland, was one of dozens of smaller Silesian communities that filled the small-denomination vacuum the Reich's own mints could no longer cover.
Lauban issued this iron notgeld piece in 1918 as the German imperial economy buckled under wartime metal requisitioning — copper, nickel, and zinc had been systematically stripped from civilian coinage since 1915 to feed munitions production, forcing municipalities across Silesia to improvise their own emergency issues. The town, now Lubań in southwestern Poland, was one of dozens of smaller Silesian communities that filled the small-denomination vacuum the Reich's own mints could no longer cover.