5 Mark

Konstanz occupies a peculiar position in German municipal emergency money: it sits on the Swiss border, and by 1918 the city was acutely aware of the franc's stability relative to the collapsing purchasing power of the mark. Stadt Konstanz issued this Notgeld as a stopgap against the chronic small-denomination coin shortage that had plagued German civilian life since roughly 1916, when metal coinage was systematically withdrawn for war industry use.

Five mark is toward the upper end of typical municipal Notgeld denominations — most cities stayed at one or two. That this note was printed locally rather than contracted to a specialist printer is consistent with the improvised character of the whole series.