100 000 000 000 Mark

This note was issued by the city of Düsseldorf under the emergency currency provisions that allowed German municipalities to print their own Notgeld when the Reichsbank could no longer supply adequate denominations fast enough to keep pace with hyperinflation. By late 1923, the rate of price increases made even 100-billion-Mark notes functionally small change within days of issue — the Rentenmark reform in November 1923 rendered the entire series worthless almost immediately.

Municipal issues from the Rhineland during this period carry an additional layer of instability: Düsseldorf was under French and Belgian occupation at the time, and the Ruhr crisis had severely disrupted both industrial output and the flow of Reich currency into the region.