1 000 000 Mark

The joint issuance by Bottrop, Gladbeck, and Osterfeld reflects a peculiarity of the German hyperinflation emergency — the Notgeld system allowed municipalities, companies, and local authorities to print their own currency when Reichsbank supply couldn't keep pace with denomination demand. By mid-1923, the million-mark threshold had become routine; this note would have been functionally obsolete within weeks of printing, outpaced by inflation running at rates that made yesterday's denominations tomorrow's small change.

The three towns sit in the northern Ruhr industrial belt, an area under French and Belgian military occupation from January 1923 following Germany's default on reparations timber deliveries. That occupation directly strangled local economies and accelerated the collapse that made notes like this necessary.