1 000 000 Marks

Papierfabrik Sebnitz was, as the name states, a paper manufacturer — not a bank, not a municipality, not a trading company. That an actual paper mill found itself issuing its own emergency currency during the 1923 hyperinflation is precisely the kind of institutional absurdity that defined Notgeld at its worst extreme. The mill almost certainly printed this note on its own stock, which is the most self-referential act in the entire catalog of German inflation currency.

By the time the million-mark denomination became necessary, the Reichsmark had already lost any meaningful relationship to daily wages. Sebnitz, a small Saxon town known for its artificial flower industry, had dozens of local employers issuing scrip simultaneously.