5 Pfennig

Plauen's 1919 notgeld issues came at a moment when the Reichsbank could not supply enough small coinage to keep local commerce functional — a problem affecting hundreds of German municipalities simultaneously in the immediate postwar period. The city's solution was entirely self-administered, with Oberbürgermeister Lehmann's signature lending the notes whatever municipal authority they carried.

Plauen i.V. — the "i.V." distinguishing it from other German Plauens, referencing the Vogtland region — was an industrial textile center, and the working-class population's daily transactions made the small-denomination gap acutely felt at street level. Five Pfennig was the most granular unit of practical commerce.