5 Pfennig - Freudenstadt

Freudenstadt issued this zinc notgeld piece in 1917 as wartime metal requisitions stripped municipal circulation of copper and nickel. The city in the Black Forest had been largely rebuilt after French forces under Turenne burned it in 1692, and by 1917 its administration was accustomed to improvising under duress. Zinc was the emergency fallback for dozens of German municipalities that year, though its brittleness made these pieces prone to cracking — survivors in undamaged condition are less common than mintage figures suggest.