50 Pfennig

Schmalkalden sits in the Thuringian hills, and by 1921 the Kreisausschuss — the district committee — was issuing its own emergency currency like hundreds of other German local authorities scrambling to fill the void left by chronic small-denomination coin shortages. This is standard Notgeld territory, but the Wilisch connection makes it slightly less so. Feodor Wilisch operated a printing house directly in Schmalkalden, meaning this note was designed, printed, and issued within a few kilometers — an unusually tight local loop even by Notgeld standards.

Kurt Jäckel's credit as designer is worth noting. Wilisch commissioned local artistic talent for several issues, and the DeNG reference suffix suggests this is the sixth variant in the series.