10 Pfennig

Donauwörth's 1918 Notgeld issue belongs to the first major wave of municipal emergency currency that flooded southern Germany as the imperial monetary system buckled under wartime metal shortages and coin hoarding. The Stadtmagistrat — the town's civic magistracy — had legal authority to issue such notes under Bavarian municipal ordinance, though in practice the proliferation of local issuers that year made standardized redemption a bureaucratic nightmare.

Heinz Schiestl, the Würzburg-based graphic artist responsible for the design, was among the more sought-after hands working in Bavarian Notgeld illustration during this period. His involvement elevates this above the purely functional scrip that most small municipalities commissioned.