50 Pfennig Landkreis Bochum

Langendreer — now absorbed into Bochum itself — was an industrial village at the heart of the Ruhr coalfield, and the printer F. A. Gimmerthal operated there as a local commercial house rather than a specialist banknote firm. The Kreis-Ausschuss issued this note under the emergency currency provisions that proliferated across Germany from 1914 onward, accelerating sharply in 1921 as coin shortages worsened and municipal bodies scrambled to fill the gap left by an overwhelmed Reichsbank.

Landkreis Bochum was administratively distinct from the city of Bochum itself — the Kreis surrounded but did not include the urban municipality, a jurisdictional quirk that explains the separate issuance rather than a unified city note.