1 Mark

Gera's city council issued this 1 Mark note as Notgeld during the hyperinflationary spiral of 1921, when municipal and commercial bodies across Germany flooded local circulation with emergency paper to cover the shortage of small-denomination Reichsbank currency. The embossed stamp — rather than a printed security device — reflects the stripped-down production realities of that moment.

The printing date of 30 April 1945 in the catalog data is almost certainly an acquisition or administrative record date, not a production date. Gera fell to American forces in late April 1945; no municipal printing authority was issuing 1921-dated Notgeld on the day Hitler died.