5 Mark

German municipal authorities gained emergency currency-issuing powers during World War One as the Reichsbank struggled to maintain adequate small denomination circulation — coins had largely disappeared into hoarding and metal drives by 1916. Düsseldorf was among hundreds of cities that stepped into that vacuum with their own Notgeld, though the 5 Mark denomination sits at the upper end of what most municipalities typically issued, most having stopped at 1 or 2 Mark.

The guilloche underprint was a nod toward anti-counterfeiting discipline that many smaller issuers skipped entirely. By late 1918, the issuing authority itself was weeks away from operating under a collapsed imperial government.