1 000 000 Mark Kreis Wetzlar

Wetzlar was one of hundreds of German administrative districts empowered to issue their own emergency currency during the hyperinflation crisis of 1923, when the Reichsmark's collapse outpaced the central government's ability to supply physical notes. The Kreiskommunalkasse — the district's municipal treasury — rather than the town itself, was the formal issuing authority, a distinction that mattered legally if redemption was ever demanded.

By mid-1923, a one-million mark denomination was already inadequate for daily transactions within weeks of printing. Scharfes Druckereien, a local press, produced the note in Wetzlar — a straightforward domestic job with no outside contractor involved.