50 Pfennig, Stadt Marburg, 1918

This is Kriegsnotgeld, the earlier kind: war emergency money rather than the collectors' issues of 1920-21. Silver and nickel disappeared from circulation within weeks of mobilisation in 1914, and the Reichsbank could not print small notes fast enough to replace it, so towns and districts filled the gap on their own authority and against their own treasuries. These issues look like what they are - functional paper, serially numbered, with a validity tied to a redemption notice rather than a picture on the back.

Marburg an der Lahn issued this in July 1918, four months before the end of the war. The university had been there since 1527, the first Protestant university in the world, and the note shows the market square below the Rathaus with its stair tower.