1 000 000 Mark

Pirmasens issued its own emergency currency during the hyperinflation of 1923, as did hundreds of German municipalities scrambling to meet payroll when Reichsbank notes became inadequate faster than they could be printed. The Stadtkasse — the city treasury, not a commercial bank — bore direct responsibility for backing these notes, which in practice meant very little given the monetary conditions of that summer and autumn.

A million marks. By late 1923, that denomination would barely cover a loaf of bread, and many Pirmasens workers received wages in locally printed notgeld simply because no other paper was available in sufficient volume.