25 Pfennig

Kreissparkasse zu Diepholz was a district savings institution in Lower Saxony, and like hundreds of similar municipal bodies it turned to emergency scrip in 1920 when the postwar coin shortage made small-denomination Reichsmark coinage effectively unavailable. This is Notgeld in its purest administrative form — a stopgap authorized locally because the central monetary system had failed at the retail level.

Gebrüder Jänecke in Hannover were prolific Notgeld printers during this period, handling runs for numerous Niedersachsen municipalities. Three signatories is slightly unusual for a note of this denomination and issuer type — most comparable pieces carried two.