1 000 000 Mark

Ludwigshafen's municipal emergency money was a direct product of the 1923 hyperinflation crisis, when the Reichsbank could not physically print currency fast enough to keep pace with collapsing purchasing power. Cities, towns, businesses, and even private firms were authorized to issue their own Notgeld to cover wage payments and daily commerce — by mid-1923 the number of local issuers ran into the thousands.

Weiss & Hameier were a local commercial printer, not a specialist banknote firm. The one-million mark denomination, which would have seemed unthinkable two years earlier, was already insufficient for most transactions within weeks of issue.