1 Mark

Hofgeismar is a small town in northern Hesse, and its Kreissparkasse — the district savings bank — was among the hundreds of local German institutions that issued emergency small-change notes (Kleingeldscheine) during the acute coin shortage that gripped Germany in 1917–1918. These weren't banknotes in the central-bank sense; they were stopgap instruments, locally authorized and locally redeemable, intended to keep daily commerce moving when metal had been redirected to the war effort.

Gebrüder Gotthelft in Cassel printed a substantial volume of Notgeld for Hessian issuers during this period. The DeNG suffix variants (.2-4/5) indicate multiple sub-types within the series — likely differing in date, signature, or overprint detail.