5 Mark

Stettin's municipal authority issued emergency paper money — Notgeld — during 1918 as the Imperial German monetary system buckled under wartime strain. The Magistrat, like dozens of other German municipal bodies that year, stepped in to plug a chronic shortage of small-denomination coinage, which had effectively vanished from circulation as the public hoarded metal and the Reichsbank struggled to meet demand.

Printed locally, these notes were never intended to outlast the crisis. Most circulated heavily and were redeemed quickly once stabilization efforts began in the early 1920s, making intact survivors less common than their original print runs might suggest.