20 Mark

Elmshorn's municipal administration issued this note under the emergency currency provisions that proliferated across German towns from 1914 onward, but the 20 Mark denomination places it at the heavier end of Notgeld values — most municipalities kept their emergency issues well below 10 Mark to manage local redemption risk. Printing was handled by J.M. Groth's local press, which was standard practice for Schleswig-Holstein towns unwilling or unable to wait on overextended commercial printers in Hamburg.

By late 1918, municipal redemption guarantees were increasingly theoretical. The armistice in November that year coincided with accelerating inflation that would render the face value meaningless within a few years regardless.