100 000 Mark Klöckner-Werke

Klöckner-Werke's Hasper iron and steel works was one of hundreds of German industrial firms that issued emergency notes — Notgeld — during the hyperinflation of 1923, when the Reichsbank simply could not print currency fast enough to meet payroll demand. Factory workers needed to be paid in something, and waiting for official notes meant wages lost a measurable fraction of their value between disbursement and the walk to the nearest shop.

Notgeld issued by private industrial employers was typically redeemable only at company facilities or approved local merchants, creating a closed circulation loop that insulated it — briefly — from the worst of the open-market depreciation spiral. The 100,000 Mark denomination, unthinkable just two years earlier, was routine by mid-1923.