1 Heller - Wilhelm II

German East Africa's copper coinage was administered through the Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft until the imperial government assumed direct colonial control in 1891, but it took over a decade more before a stable small-denomination bronze series was firmly established for local circulation. The Heller denominations were minted at the Berlin Mint and saw genuine day-to-day use in the territory covering present-day Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi.

Production ran until 1913 — just a year before the outbreak of the war that would eventually cost Germany the colony entirely under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.