5 Mark

Fulda's municipal authority issued this note under the emergency currency provisions that proliferated across German towns from 1914 onward, but by 1918 Notgeld had shifted from genuine emergency necessity to something more deliberate — municipalities had discovered that well-designed local notes were hoarded rather than spent, effectively generating interest-free credit for the issuer.

The designer credit to Nater is the one genuinely distinguishing feature here. Local commissions of this period frequently went to regional commercial artists whose other work is now largely untraceable.