Fulda's 1918 zinc Notgeld issue appeared as the German imperial economy collapsed under the combined pressure of the naval blockade and four years of wartime metal requisitioning. By this point, copper and nickel had been systematically stripped from civilian coinage for years, and municipalities across the Reich were left to improvise their own emergency money. Zinc was the default solution — abundant, unglamorous, and deeply unpopular with the public, who correctly associated it with wartime privation.
Fulda's 1918 zinc Notgeld issue appeared as the German imperial economy collapsed under the combined pressure of the naval blockade and four years of wartime metal requisitioning. By this point, copper and nickel had been systematically stripped from civilian coinage for years, and municipalities across the Reich were left to improvise their own emergency money. Zinc was the default solution — abundant, unglamorous, and deeply unpopular with the public, who correctly associated it with wartime privation.