5 Mark

Grünhain is a small Saxon town whose population in 1917 barely justified its own municipal council, let alone its own emergency currency. This note is Notgeld in the strictest wartime sense — issued because the Reichsbank simply could not keep small-denomination metal coinage in circulation once copper, nickel, and zinc were being consumed by the war effort. Hundreds of German municipalities did the same, but most were larger urban centers; Grünhain's participation reflects how deeply the coinage shortage had penetrated into minor rural communities by mid-war.

Wiedemannsche Druckerei AG in Saalfeld handled the printing — a Thuringian commercial press, not a specialist security printer, which makes the inclusion of a watermark somewhat notable for a note at this level of issuer.