5 Rupien

By 1915, the naval blockade had severed German East Africa from Europe entirely, cutting off any possibility of importing currency from metropolitan printers. The colonial government turned to the Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Zeitung — a local newspaper press — to produce emergency notes, which is precisely why this series looks nothing like conventional colonial currency. It was printed on whatever paper the press had available, including in some documented instances interleaved paper stocks originally intended for newsprint runs.

Governor Heinrich Schnee authorized the issue under wartime necessity provisions. Lettow-Vorbeck's campaign kept the colony undefeated until after the Armistice, meaning these notes remained nominally valid longer than almost any other German colonial emission.