1 Mark - Gleiwitz Drahtwerke

Gleiwitz, now Gliwice in southwestern Poland, was a major industrial center in Upper Silesia — a region so economically contested that its postwar status was settled by a League of Nations plebiscite in 1921. The Drahtwerke, a wire and cable manufacturing operation, issued this iron notgeld during the acute coin shortages of World War I, when the German government had stripped copper and nickel from circulation for weapons production. Factory-issued coinage of this type was redeemable only within the issuing company's own payroll and canteen system, effectively tying workers' purchasing power to a single employer.