5 Pfennig - Oldisleben

Oldisleben is a small town in Thuringia that, like hundreds of German municipalities in 1919, was forced to produce its own emergency coinage — Notgeld — after the postwar economic disruption severed the normal supply of small-denomination metal currency from central mints. Iron was the default material not by preference but because copper, nickel, and zinc had been aggressively requisitioned for the war effort and remained in critically short supply. The Funck reference places this among a documented series, but Oldisleben's issues are minor provincial pieces with no recorded circulation drama beyond the ordinary municipal scramble to keep small transactions functioning.