100 000 000 000 Mark

By the time Karlsruhe issued this 100-billion Mark note in late 1923, the Reichsbank had effectively lost control of the money supply and authorized municipalities, private firms, and regional authorities to print their own emergency currency — Notgeld — simply to keep commerce functioning. Karlsruhe was among hundreds of German cities issuing paper in denominations that would have been considered absurd twelve months earlier.

Thiergarten was a local Karlsruhe printer, not a specialist security press, which is typical of the desperation economics driving late-phase hyperinflation notgeld. Kusche's design credit is unusually specific for municipal emergency issues of this period.