2 000 000 Mark

Gaggenau's 2,000,000 Mark note dates from the catastrophic summer of 1923, when the Reichsmark's collapse forced hundreds of German municipalities to print their own emergency currency — Notgeld — simply to make change. By August of that year, the official inflation rate had rendered virtually every denomination obsolete within days of issue.

Gaggenau was then, as now, best known as an industrial town; its Gaggenau-Werke plant was a significant employer, and municipal authorities had a practical stake in keeping workers paid in something spendable. The note's face value, staggering by any prewar measure, would itself have been nearly worthless within weeks of printing.