Friedenfels is a small Bavarian municipality whose wartime notgeld issue emerged from the same crisis that forced hundreds of German towns to produce emergency coinage in 1917 — chronic metal shortages had stripped circulation of virtually all copper and nickel, leaving local commerce without small change. Zinc, already heavily requisitioned for the war effort itself, was one of the few materials still accessible to municipal issuers at this stage of the conflict.
Friedenfels is a small Bavarian municipality whose wartime notgeld issue emerged from the same crisis that forced hundreds of German towns to produce emergency coinage in 1917 — chronic metal shortages had stripped circulation of virtually all copper and nickel, leaving local commerce without small change. Zinc, already heavily requisitioned for the war effort itself, was one of the few materials still accessible to municipal issuers at this stage of the conflict.