5 Pfennig

Schleiz, a small town in the Thuringian principality of Reuss, issued this note during the Kleingeldersatz crisis of 1919, when coin shortages following Germany's defeat left municipalities scrambling to produce their own fractional currency. The Reichsbank could not keep pace with demand for low-denomination coinage, so hundreds of German towns printed their own stopgap paper — this 5 Pfennig being one of the more minor examples, covering a value so small that even metal had rarely been pressed into it during normal times.

Reuss itself had only just ceased to exist as a sovereign state, absorbed into the newly formed Thuringia in 1920.