1000 Mark

Mannheim's city administration, like hundreds of German municipal bodies in 1922, was forced into currency issuance not by policy ambition but by simple necessity — the Reichsbank could not physically print fast enough to keep pace with accelerating inflation. This 1000 Mark note is Stadtgeld, municipal emergency money, authorized under the same desperate conditions that produced thousands of distinct local issues across the Weimar Republic that year.

By the time 1000 Mark carried any real purchasing power in 1922, the denomination was already being outpaced by events. Within twelve months, Mannheim and other city issuers would be printing notes with face values a million times larger.