50 Heller Mittelberg

Mittelberg is a small alpine community in the Kleinwalsertal — a valley geographically isolated from the rest of Vorarlberg by the mountains and accessible overland only through Bavaria. This geographic anomaly gave the valley a customs union with Germany while remaining politically Austrian, a peculiarity that shaped its economic life well into the twentieth century. The 1920 Heller notes were part of the broader Austrian Notgeld wave, when the post-war collapse of the central monetary system forced even tiny municipalities to issue their own emergency scrip to keep local commerce moving.

Traunfellner and Gruber were almost certainly local officials rather than bank functionaries — Mittelberg had no bank branch of its own at this date.