5 Mark

Schwäbisch Gmünd issued this note during the acute coin shortage that followed Germany's defeat in the First World War. Municipal and commercial Notgeld flooded the German economy in 1918–1919 as federal coinage disappeared from circulation through hoarding and wartime metal demands, leaving local authorities to fill the gap with emergency paper. Stadt Schwäbisch Gmünd was among hundreds of Württemberg towns that took that step in early 1919.

The Württemberg region maintained its own administrative structures even after unification into the Weimar Republic, and municipal Notgeld issued there in this period carries no Reichsbank authority — it was strictly a local instrument, redeemable only through the issuing body.