5 Pfennigs - Brockwitz Heinr. Bierling G.M.B.H.

Brockwitz, a small industrial settlement on the Elbe near Coswig in Saxony, hosted a number of manufacturing operations whose wartime labor demands outpaced the Reich's ability to supply small-denomination coinage. Heinr. Bierling G.M.B.H. issued zinc notgeld tokens of this type to facilitate wage payments and canteen transactions during the severe coin shortages of the First World War period — zinc being the ersatz metal of necessity once copper and nickel were redirected to the war economy.