5 Rupien

The Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Bank's 1915 emergency issues were products of a colony cut off. Once the British naval blockade severed supply lines from Germany, the bank could no longer import printed notes from the Reich, forcing improvised local production in Dar es Salaam under increasingly difficult wartime conditions. The 1915 series was lithographed locally — a significant departure from the engraved European-produced notes of earlier years, and the quality difference shows.

Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck's East Africa campaign kept German forces in the field until after the Armistice, meaning these notes remained nominally in use longer than currency issued by any other German colonial authority in the war.