Weimar's municipal iron notgeld of 1920 belongs to the wave of emergency coinage that swept German cities after the First World War, when the central government was unable to supply sufficient small-denomination metal coinage and local authorities stepped in to fill the gap. Iron was the material of necessity — copper and nickel had been systematically stripped from civilian coinage during the war years and hadn't returned.
The city of Weimar carried particular symbolic weight in 1920, having hosted the constitutional assembly that produced the republic's founding document just the previous year.
Weimar's municipal iron notgeld of 1920 belongs to the wave of emergency coinage that swept German cities after the First World War, when the central government was unable to supply sufficient small-denomination metal coinage and local authorities stepped in to fill the gap. Iron was the material of necessity — copper and nickel had been systematically stripped from civilian coinage during the war years and hadn't returned.
The city of Weimar carried particular symbolic weight in 1920, having hosted the constitutional assembly that produced the republic's founding document just the previous year.