12 Groschen Emergency currency

Magdeburg's 1629 emergency coinage was struck under the shadow of the Thirty Years' War, with Imperial and Swedish forces competing for control of the region. The city was holding out under siege conditions that would culminate in May 1631 with the catastrophic sack of Magdeburg — one of the deadliest events of the entire conflict, killing upward of 20,000 civilians. This issue predates that destruction by roughly two years.

The city's mint produced fractional emergency pieces as civic finances buckled under the cost of maintaining defenses.