1 Mark Sparkasse

Städtische Sparkasse Brühl bei Köln was one of hundreds of municipal savings banks that issued emergency small-change notes — Kleingeldscheine — during the severe coin shortage that gripped Germany from 1916 onward. The state could not keep enough metal coinage in circulation as the war consumed copper, nickel, and zinc, pushing the burden of fractional currency down to local institutions with no formal note-issuing tradition.

Carl Flemming & Wiskott in Glogau handled enormous volumes of this municipal notgeld work, which is why their imprint appears across dozens of issuers from the same period. Brühl itself, a small Rhineland town best known for Schloss Augustusburg, had no particular monetary significance — the note exists purely because the town needed change.