2 Mark

Rietberg is a small Westphalian town with no particular monetary history, which makes its 1921 Notgeld series more a product of the nationwide small-change crisis than any local necessity. The Reichsbank's inability to supply adequate coinage in the postwar inflationary spiral pushed thousands of German municipalities into self-issued emergency currency, and Rietberg was simply one of them.

Ad. Essich & Co. of Oldenburg handled a considerable volume of Notgeld commissions during this period, supplying multiple issuers across northwestern Germany. The reference number suggests at least five varieties within this 2 Mark denomination alone — likely color or text variants rather than distinct printings.