20 Heller Zistersdorf

Zistersdorf sits in the Weinviertel region of Lower Austria, an area that would later become significant for domestic oil production — but in 1920 the town was dealing with the same acute small-change shortage that plagued virtually every Austrian municipality after the collapse of the Habsburg economy. The national coinage supply had disintegrated, and thousands of Gemeinden and market towns responded by issuing their own Notgeld in denominations too small for the central authorities to bother with.

Franz Schweng operated out of Hänserndorf, a village printer taking on municipal emergency work — a thoroughly local production from press to issuer.