5 Deutsche Mark Max Pettenkofer

Pettenkofer was a 19th-century Munich hygienist whose work on cholera transmission was largely wrong — he rejected the germ theory of disease and instead championed a "miasma plus soil" model — yet his insistence on urban sanitation infrastructure, clean water, and sewage reform saved far more lives than many contemporaries who were scientifically correct. Germany chose to commemorate him on the 150th anniversary of his birth rather than the centenary of any particular achievement, a quiet acknowledgment that public health outcomes matter more than theoretical accuracy.