5 Pfennig - Neu-Ulm

Neu-Ulm's 1917 zinc notgeld emerged from the same wartime metal shortage that stripped German municipalities of their copper and nickel coinage — both metals had been systematically redirected to munitions production by 1916. Zinc was the reluctant substitute across hundreds of German cities simultaneously, resulting in a fragile, corrosion-prone coinage that the issuing authorities fully expected to withdraw once the war ended.

Neu-Ulm's position directly across the Danube from Ulm — a Württemberg city in a separate state — created genuine administrative friction over local currency acceptance that purely urban issuers never faced.