2 000 000 000 Mark

Dresden's municipal administration, like hundreds of German cities, was forced into issuing its own emergency currency — Notgeld — as the Reichsbank's printing output failed to keep pace with hyperinflation accelerating beyond all practical management. By late 1923, denominations in the billions had become necessary for basic transactions; a two-billion-mark note was not a curiosity but a functional instrument, briefly.

Stengel & Co. was primarily a fine-art publishing house known for photographic postcards and reproductions — an unusual press to be running emergency currency, but Dresden's municipal authorities worked with what was locally available. The note's production quality reflects that commercial-art background rather than a security-printing heritage.