10 Pfennigs Celle PoW Camp

Cellelager was one of several dedicated officer prisoner-of-war camps operating in Germany during the First World War, and like many such facilities it issued its own internal scrip to allow captives to make purchases within the camp economy without handling Reichsmark currency. The use of J. P. Himmer of Augsburg — a commercial printer with no particular specialization in security printing — was typical of these ad hoc camp issues, where expediency mattered more than forgery resistance.

Officer camps operated under different conditions than enlisted PoW camps, partly governed by the 1907 Hague Convention provisions requiring that captured officers receive pay commensurate with their rank. This scrip was the mechanism through which that obligation was discharged in practice.