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5 Mark Golzern; PoW Camp
| Issuer | Kriegsgefangenenlager Golzern (Mulde) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1916 |
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| Value | 5 Mark (5) |
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| Obverse description | Black letterpress text on a light brown underprint, enclosed within a fine guilloche border frame running the full perimeter. The camp designation 'Kriegsgefangenenlager Golzern (Mulde)' is set across the top, with the denomination 'FÜNF MARK' in large bold type at centre, above a multi-line redemption text in German. Two manuscript signatures appear at lower centre, those of the Verpflegungsoffizier (Oberleutnant) at left and the Kommandant (Oberst) at right, with the printer's imprint 'Johannes Pässler, Dresden-N.' along the bottom margin. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Unprinted reverse on cream-coloured paper stock, with faint show-through of the obverse letterpress text visible owing to the thinness of the paper. No intentional design elements, text, or security devices appear on this side. |
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| Comments |
Golzern was a prisoner-of-war labor camp on the Mulde river in Saxony, and its scrip exists because the German military required PoW camps to maintain internal accounting systems that kept Allied and other foreign prisoners from accumulating Reichsmarks — currency that could theoretically fund an escape. The Pässler firm in Dresden printed camp money for multiple facilities during the war, working essentially as a small commercial stationer servicing the military bureaucracy rather than any central issuing authority.
The 5 Mark denomination is the highest in the Golzern series, which itself is among the better-documented Saxon camp issues in Campgeld scholarship. Netlage and Hartung both catalogued the series, though surviving examples across all denominations remain genuinely scarce.