10 000 000 000 Mark Rheinfelden

Rheinfelden's ten-billion-mark note was issued at the absolute peak of the Weimar hyperinflation — by November 1923, even this denomination was barely sufficient for basic transactions. Municipal bodies across Germany were forced into emergency currency production because the Reichsbank simply could not print and distribute legal tender fast enough to keep pace with collapsing purchasing power. Stadtgemeinde Rheinfelden, a small Baden border town on the Rhine opposite its Swiss namesake, was among hundreds of local authorities issuing Notgeld of this kind during the final weeks before the Rentenmark stabilization of mid-November 1923.

The sheer face value — ten billion marks — tells the whole story of that autumn.