2 Mark Wildemann PoW Camp

Wildemann, in the Harz Mountains of Lower Saxony, housed Allied officers during the First World War — a distinction that mattered under the Hague Conventions, since officer prisoners were entitled to receive pay and required a means of spending it without handling Reichsmarks. The cloth token currencies issued by such camps were a direct administrative response to that obligation, keeping purchasing power confined within the wire.

Blue cloth as a substrate is genuinely uncommon. Most German PoW camp issues used cardboard, paper, or stamped metal. The textile medium here likely reflects a local improvisation — whatever material was available to the camp administration in 1914 or shortly after.