1 000 000 Mark

Wetzlar's municipal treasury — the Stadtkasse — issued this million-mark note during the hyperinflationary collapse of 1923, when German municipal and commercial bodies were legally permitted to print their own emergency currency, Notgeld, to meet payroll and daily commerce as Reichsbank supply became functionally useless. By the time denominations reached seven figures, the notes were often worth less than the paper they were printed on before the ink dried.

Scharfes Druckereien was a local Wetzlar firm — the note went from press to pocket within the same small city on the Lahn.