20 Mark

This note is a product of Germany's Notgeld system at its most administratively fragmented — three separate municipal governments, Bremerhaven, Lehe, and Geestemünde, issuing a single piece of emergency currency under joint authority, each countersigned by its own official. The arrangement reflects the acute coin shortage of the final war year, when municipalities across Germany were legally empowered to fill the gap left by hoarded metal coinage.

Printed locally by Otto Remmler in Geestemünde rather than by one of the major security printers, which was common for municipal Notgeld of this period. The three cities would eventually merge in 1924 to form Wesermünde, making this note a document of an administrative arrangement that no longer existed within six years of printing.