1 000 000 000 Mark

Wetzlar's Stadtkasse was among hundreds of German municipal treasuries that issued their own emergency currency during the hyperinflation of 1923 — not by choice, but because the Reichsbank simply could not print fast enough to keep pace with collapsing purchasing power. By the time a note of this denomination was authorized, a billion marks would buy roughly what a few pfennigs had bought four years earlier. The velocity of depreciation during the September–November 1923 period was such that new denominations were obsolete almost upon issue.

Scharfes Druckereien, a local Wetzlar printer, handled production — which was the norm for Notgeld of this period. Municipal and regional issues were printed wherever capacity existed, with little standardization in paper quality or security features.