5 Pfennig - Eisleben Mansfeldsche Gewerkschaft

The Mansfeldsche Gewerkschaft was one of Germany's oldest and most important copper-mining operations, tracing continuous extraction in the Mansfeld basin back to medieval times. By 1918, wartime metal requisitions had stripped conventional coinage from circulation entirely, forcing industrial enterprises — mines, factories, municipalities — to issue their own emergency money. This notgeld was not charity or novelty; it was operational necessity, issued so workers could be paid and local commerce could function at all.

Zinc was the default material precisely because brass, copper, and nickel had been absorbed by the war economy.