5 Mark

Cologne issued its own emergency currency — Notgeld — in 1918 as the imperial economy collapsed and small-denomination coinage disappeared from circulation entirely. The signature here belongs to Konrad Adenauer, then serving as Oberbürgermeister of Cologne, a position he had held since 1917 and would continue to hold until forcibly removed by the Nazis in 1933. He was, of course, later Federal Chancellor — which makes signed municipal scrip from this period a document that attracts collectors far outside the usual Notgeld field.

J. P. Bachem was a Cologne-based Catholic publishing house, not a specialist security printer. That origin shows in some examples.