50 Pfennig

Heydekrug — now Šilutė in Lithuania — was a predominantly German-speaking market town in the Memel Territory, a region detached from Germany under the Treaty of Versailles and placed under French administration in January 1920. This Notgeld issue dates to 1921, when the territory's political status remained unresolved and the local municipality was still functioning under its German administrative apparatus, less than two years before Lithuanian irregulars seized the region in January 1923.

The watermarked paper is notable for small-denomination emergency currency of this type — most municipal Notgeld from this period dispensed with security features entirely. Erasmusdruck in Berlin handled a substantial volume of Notgeld printing during the early 1920s inflation period.