20 Heller Ottnang

Ottnang am Hausruck is a small Upper Austrian market town whose modest economy rested largely on the regional coal-mining industry. Like hundreds of Austrian municipalities after the First World War, it issued its own emergency small change — Notgeld — to compensate for the near-total disappearance of metal coinage from circulation. The collapse of the Habsburg monetary system left communities like Ottnang scrambling to fill denominations that banks and the new Austrian state simply could not supply.

Michael Katzlberger's signature as authorizing official places this squarely within local municipal administration rather than any banking institution. The JPR0718a series distinguishes at least two varieties of this 20 Heller issue.