5 Pfennig

Bad Sulza, a small spa town in Thuringia, issued this Notgeld piece during the acute coin shortage that gripped Germany in the final year of the First World War. Municipal and commercial authorities across the country produced emergency small-denomination notes when the Reichsbank could no longer keep fractional coinage in circulation — brass and nickel were diverted to the war effort, and even the lowest-denomination pfennig pieces disappeared from daily commerce.

The official stamp serving as the primary security measure was typical of hastily authorized local issues, where engraving or watermarked paper was neither available nor practical on short notice.