50 Mark

Eisenach's municipal administration issued this note under the emergency currency provisions that devolved limited money-printing authority to German towns and cities during the final year of the war. The Hofbuchdruckerei H. Stahle was a local court printer — a Hofbuchdruckerei designation indicating a firm holding a royal or ducal warrant — pressed into service for what the issuing authority presumably expected to be a short-term measure.

The watermark is the only security feature standing between this and outright forgery, modest protection for a denomination that represented real purchasing power in a collapsing wartime economy.