20 000 000 000 Mark

Berlin's municipal government began issuing its own emergency currency — Notgeld — as the Reichsbank's printing capacity utterly failed to keep pace with hyperinflation in 1923. By the time this twenty-billion-mark denomination was produced, the city was effectively functioning as its own monetary authority out of operational necessity. The Magistrat notes circulated alongside, and often more reliably than, Reichsbank issues, simply because they were locally produced and distributed without the bottlenecks plaguing the central system.

Twenty billion marks in late 1923 bought roughly a loaf of bread. The denomination was obsolete within weeks of issue.