1 000 000 Mark

Neustadt an der Donau is a small Bavarian market town — not a major industrial center, not a state bank — yet like hundreds of similar municipalities in 1923, its Stadtrat was forced into the currency-printing business by the velocity of Weimar hyperinflation. Local authorities across Germany issued their own Notgeld simply because Reichsbank notes were becoming worthless faster than they could be shipped and distributed. A million marks, the face value here, would have bought a loaf of bread in the late summer of 1923 and essentially nothing by November.

Heinrich Schiele's Regensburg print shop handled emergency currency for several Bavarian municipalities during this period — a regional solution to a national collapse. The watermarked paper signals at least a nominal attempt at security on a note whose purchasing power evaporated within days of printing.