5 Pfennig

Cottbus Notgeld of this denomination belongs to the first wave of municipal emergency currency issued across Germany from 1916 onward, when coin shortages — driven by wartime hoarding and the requisitioning of base metals — left small transactions effectively paralyzed. Town magistrates were authorized to fill the gap themselves, printing scrip redeemable locally. Most of these issues were produced in very short runs by local print shops, which accounts for the variation in paper quality and impression sharpness seen across surviving examples.