20 Heller Zweckverband der Gemeinden des G.Bez. Hainfeld

Hainfeld's municipal association — a Zweckverband, a cooperative body of several communes acting collectively — resorted to emergency Heller notes in 1920 because the postwar Austrian state simply could not supply enough small-denomination currency to keep local commerce functional. The hyperinflationary spiral that would destroy the krone entirely by 1922 was already making low-value coins disappear from circulation through hoarding and melting. Gutenberg in St. Pölten printed a substantial share of Lower Austrian Notgeld during this period, and the presswork on these small notes is workmanlike rather than ambitious.