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1917 ND 1 Mark Ströhen Officer POW Camp
| Issuer | Offiziergefangenenlager Ströhen |
|---|---|
| Year | 1917 |
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| Value | 1 Mark |
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| Obverse description | Dark blue letterpress on cream paper with a fine guilloche underprint. A central ornate cartouche carries the denomination inscription EINE MARK flanked by radiating sunburst vignettes above and below. The camp authority heading runs across the top, with denomination numerals repeated at each corner. A lower panel contains the serial number and terms-of-use text. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | OFFIZIERGEFANGENENLAGER STRÖHEN, Kr. Sulingen GUT FÜR MARK 1 1 MARK EINE MARK MARK 1 1 MARK Dieses Lagergeld gilt nur als Zahlungsmittel innerhalb des Lagers. Der Betrag für diesen Gutschein wird bei Entlassung des Gefangenen bar ausgezahlt, bei Überweisung in ein anderes Lager dahin überwiesen. Scheine, bei denen die Nummer ganz oder teilweise fehlt, werden nicht eingelöst |
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| Comments |
Ströhen was a dedicated officer prisoner-of-war camp in Lower Saxony, and like many German military internment facilities during World War One, it issued its own internal currency to control commerce within the wire. These Lagergeld notes circulated exclusively inside the camp — Allied officers could not spend them outside, and German guards had no use for them. The system was partly administrative, partly a tool for preventing escapes funded by convertible money.
Officer camps operated under the Hague Convention's rules on POW treatment, which meant inmates retained certain privileges — including regulated canteen access — and internal scrip made that manageable without introducing Reichsmarks into a tightly monitored environment.
Ströhen's notes from this period are among the more obscure camp issues, with very little documented circulation data surviving the postwar destruction of camp records.