1000 Mark

Stadt Köln's 1922 notgeld issues were not printed out of choice. The Reichsbank's inability to supply adequate currency during the hyperinflationary spiral forced hundreds of German municipalities to contract local printers and issue emergency notes backed by nothing more than municipal authority. M. Dumont Schauberg was Cologne's own press — the same firm that had published the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger since 1802 — making this a genuinely local production in every sense.

The 1000 Mark denomination, enormous by 1921 standards, had become almost routine by mid-1922 as purchasing power collapsed month by month. Municipal notgeld of this period was formally tolerated rather than sanctioned, and cities issuing it were legally exposed until retroactive framework agreements normalized the practice.