3 Mark

The Swakopmunder Buchhandlung — literally the Swakopmund Bookshop — became an unlikely emergency currency issuer during the First World War, when the German colonial administration in South West Africa found itself cut off from metropolitan Germany following the South African campaign of 1915. By the time this note was produced, German forces had already surrendered to South African troops under Louis Botha, and the territory was under Union of South Africa military occupation. The Buchhandlung issues circulated among the remaining German civilian population during that awkward interregnum.

Printing on linen rather than paper was a pragmatic local solution to material shortages — one of the more unusual substrate choices in the broader family of African emergency issues.