20 Mark

Krefeld's 1918 Notgeld issue belongs to the first wave of municipal emergency currency that flooded Germany as the imperial economy buckled under wartime strain. The city, long a center of the German silk and velvet weaving industry, was among hundreds of municipalities that stepped into the vacuum left by a chronic shortage of Reichsbank small-denomination notes — coins having largely vanished from circulation by 1917 as metal was diverted to the war effort.

The watermark is worth noting: most municipal Notgeld of this period was printed on plain stock, so its presence here suggests Krefeld drew on existing commercial paper supplies rather than commissioning purpose-made currency paper.