25 Pfennig

Bodenwerder notgeld from the First World War inflation period, issued by the municipal savings bank rather than a commercial or state institution — a telling sign of how far currency issuance had devolved by 1918. Selmar Bayer in Berlin handled enormous volumes of small-denomination emergency notes for towns across Germany during this period, and the Bodenwerder piece is one of hundreds of such commissions the firm fulfilled in that final war year.

The dual-signature requirement — Stoltenberg and Unger — reflects local administrative oversight, a formality that did little to mask the essentially improvised nature of the whole enterprise.