25 Rubel Ostbank für Handel und Gewerbe, Darlehnskasse Ost

The Darlehnskasse Ost was a German military loan bank established in 1916 to provide a parallel currency across occupied Eastern territories — essentially a mechanism to extract local resources without depleting Reichsmark reserves. The Ostmark notes it issued were inconvertible outside the occupation zone, which was entirely deliberate. Locals could not use them to purchase German goods or transfer value westward.

Zickfeldt of Osterwieck was a mid-tier commercial printer, not a specialist security press, and the notes were produced accordingly — adequate but without the intaglio depth of contemporaneous Reichsbank issues.