2 millions Mark - Westfalen Freiherr vom Stein

Westphalia issued this piece during the catastrophic hyperinflation of 1923, when the Reichsmark was collapsing so rapidly that local governments, municipalities, and private firms were legally permitted to issue their own emergency currency — Notgeld — simply to keep commerce functioning. The face value of two million marks, which would have seemed an absurd fiction just years earlier, was by mid-1923 barely enough to buy a loaf of bread.

The denomination honors Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein, the Prussian reformer who dismantled serfdom in 1807. His connection to Westphalia made him a natural choice for a regional issue.