1 000 000 Mark

Bezirks-Sparkasse Traunstein was a district savings bank in Upper Bavaria, one of hundreds of municipal and regional institutions that issued their own emergency currency — Notgeld — during the hyperinflation crisis of 1923. By August of that year, the Reichsmark was losing value faster than notes could be printed, and local authorities were legally authorized to supplement the collapsing national supply. A million marks sounds extraordinary; by late 1923, it barely covered a loaf of bread.

The watermarked paper suggests procurement from a commercial stationer rather than a specialist security printer — typical of the fiscal chaos that made quality control almost impossible to enforce at the district level.