5 Deutsche Mark Gustav Stresemann

Stresemann remains one of the few Weimar-era politicians genuinely respected across the postwar German political spectrum, which made him an uncontroversial choice for commemoration. His 1926 Nobel Peace Prize — shared with French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand — came directly from the Locarno Treaties, which normalized Germany's western borders and eased its path back into European diplomacy after the pariah years following Versailles.

The .625 silver alloy used across the West German commemorative 5-Mark series from this period was a deliberate cost-containment measure introduced in 1969, replacing the earlier .625-fine issues that had seen silver stripped from circulation by rising spot prices in the late 1960s.