2 000 000 Mark

Weißenburg in Bayern was a small Franconian market town with no particular financial clout, yet like hundreds of German municipalities in the summer of 1923, its city treasury was forced into the note-issuing business by the sheer velocity of hyperinflationary collapse. The Reichsbank simply could not print fast enough. Local Notgeld at these denominations — millions of marks — was not a commemorative curiosity like the earlier 1920–21 issues; it was emergency wages, change for bread, spent and gone within days before the figure on the face became meaningless.

Two million marks sounds extraordinary. In August 1923, it was roughly bus fare.