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2 Mark Köln; Officer PoW Camp
| Issuer | Offizier-Gefangenenlager Köln (Officer Prisoner of War Camp Cologne) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1918 |
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| Currency | Papiermark (1914-1923) |
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| Obverse description | Black letterpress on a tan and brown guilloche underprint with ornamental rosette corner devices, each bearing the numeral '2'. The central vignette consists of an elaborate oval guilloche medallion with the denomination '2 MARK' repeated in rectangular panels to either side. Camp designation, voucher text, date of issue, commandant's signature line, and printer's imprint appear in black type, with a handwritten signature below the 'Der Kommandant' inscription. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 2 OFFIZIER-GEFANGENENLAGER KÖLN-RH. GUT FÜR 2 MARK DER KOMMANDANT: Köln a. Rh. den 1. Oktober 1918 KEIN ÖFFENTLICHES ZAHLUNGSMITTEL M. DuMont Schauberg, Köln. (Translation: Officer prisoner of war camp Cologne on Rhine. Good for 2 mark. The commandant. Cologne on Rhine. October 1st, 1918. Not legal tender for public use.) |
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| Comments |
Offizier-Gefangenenlager Köln was one of several German camps that issued internal scrip during the First World War to allow officer prisoners — who, under the Hague Conventions, could not be compelled to labor — to make purchases within the camp economy. These notes substituted for Reichsmark currency, which prisoners were not permitted to hold freely, and circulated only within the wire.
M. DuMont Schauberg, the Cologne press that produced this note, was one of Germany's oldest newspaper publishers. Using a local commercial printer for camp scrip was entirely typical of the improvised logistics of 1918, by which point the German military administration had more urgent things to coordinate than bespoke security printing.
Most camp scrip was destroyed or discarded at the armistice. Surviving examples reached the market through former prisoners who kept them as souvenirs.