50 Pfennig Der Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten

Der Stahlhelm — the Steel Helmet — was a veterans' organization founded in 1918 by Franz Seldte, drawing membership from former front-line soldiers who felt both betrayed by the armistice and excluded from civilian political life. The Ortsgruppe Leer note is a piece of Notgeld, issued locally during the inflationary chaos of the early Weimar years when municipal governments, businesses, and even private organizations filled the void left by an inadequate official coin supply.

Gerhard Stalling in Oldenburg was a prolific printer of exactly this type of small-denomination emergency scrip. The Stahlhelm's use of such notes also served an organizational purpose — local scrip kept money circulating within sympathetic networks.