20 Mark

Issued in the final weeks of German colonial authority in South West Africa, this note was produced locally in Windhoek under genuine emergency conditions — not by a metropolitan printing house. The Kaiserliche Gouvernement resorted to improvised paper currency after the outbreak of war cut off access to normal financial channels. Seitz signed as Imperial Governor; he surrendered the territory to South African forces in July 1915, making the entire series one of the shortest-lived colonial emissions in German imperial history.

The overprint security feature reflects the ad hoc nature of production. Paper, press, and authorization were all local.