50 Pfennig

Erkelenz is a small market town in the Rhineland, and its Kreis-Ausschuß — the district committee, not a bank — issued this note under the emergency currency provisions that flooded Germany with thousands of distinct Notgeld issues from 1914 onward. The district authority had no printing infrastructure of its own; these small-denomination notes were typically contracted to local printers, and quality varied accordingly.

The 1918–1919 window straddles the armistice and the immediate postwar chaos, when coin hoarding was severe enough that pfennig-denomination Notgeld remained in active daily use well after the fighting stopped.