1 000 000 Mark

The Amtshauptmannschaft Dresden-Altstadt was one of hundreds of German district administrations forced into emergency currency printing during the hyperinflation of 1923, when the Reichsbank simply could not produce notes fast enough to keep pace with collapsing purchasing power. A million marks — a sum that would have been unimaginable a decade earlier — was by mid-1923 barely enough for a loaf of bread, and within weeks of issue these notes were already obsolete on face value alone.

The Güntz'sche Stiftung was a Dresden charitable foundation with its own printing operation, an unusual institutional printer for notgeld of this denomination. Local authorities contracted whatever presses were available.