1 000 000 Mark

Sterkrade was an independent industrial city in the Ruhr — home to Gutehoffnungshütte, one of Germany's largest iron and steel conglomerates — before being absorbed into the newly created city of Oberhausen in October 1929. Like hundreds of German municipalities during the hyperinflation of 1923, Sterkrade issued its own notgeld when Reichsbank currency became functionally worthless faster than it could be printed and distributed. A million marks was a practical denomination that summer, not an absurdity.

Municipal notgeld of this period was legally permissible but technically provisional — issuers were obligated to redeem it, an obligation that became meaningless as the inflation accelerated and the Rentenmark stabilization arrived in November 1923.