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5 Kronen Hart bei Amstetten; PoW Camp
| Issuer | Offiziersabteilung des Kriegsgefangenenlagers Harth bei Amstetten |
|---|---|
| Year | 1914-1918 |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | Black letterpress text on a green guilloche underprint. Denomination value "5 Kronen" appears in boxed cartouches at upper left and right, with a small double-headed eagle ornament centered above the main inscription. Perforated border frames the note on all sides. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 5 Kronen ZAHLMARKE DER OFFIZIERSABTEILUNG DES KRIEGSGEFANGENENLAGERS HARTH BEI AMSTETTEN. |
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| Comments |
Amstetten, in Lower Austria, hosted one of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's officer prisoner-of-war camps during the First World War. This 5 Kronen note was issued by the camp's own officers' division — the Offiziersabteilung — as internal scrip, a practice common across both sides of the conflict wherever large numbers of prisoners needed a functioning exchange medium without access to state currency.
Campbell 1387 is the standard reference, though documentation on the full series remains thin. The camp itself processed prisoners from multiple fronts, and the scrip's denominated value in Kronen tied it directly to Austrian monetary norms rather than any neutral unit — an unusual choice that implicitly placed captives within the economic system of the detaining power.