5 Mark Neisse; PoW Camp

Neisse (now Nysa, in present-day Poland) hosted one of Germany's officer prisoner-of-war camps during the First World War, and the Kommandantur issued this internal scrip specifically for use within that facility. Under the Hague Convention of 1907, captured officers could not be compelled to work and were entitled to pay advances against their home country's account — this currency was a practical instrument for managing those transactions while keeping foreign currency out of camp circulation.

Officer camps operated under notably different conditions than enlisted camps, and Neisse's scrip denominations reflect a degree of purchasing power consistent with that status gap.