5 Lei BGR - German Occupation

The Banca Generală Română was not a Romanian institution in any meaningful sense — it was a German-controlled bank established in Bucharest after the fall of the city in December 1916, created specifically to manage occupied Romanian territory's finances and extract resources for the Central Powers war effort. These notes circulated alongside, and in direct competition with, the legitimate Banca Națională a României issues that continued from unoccupied Moldavia.

Over twelve million printed for a civilian population already economically exhausted by wartime requisitioning. Postwar Romanian authorities refused to redeem BGR notes at par, treating them as instruments of occupation rather than legitimate currency.