20 000 000 Mark

Kaufbeuren's municipal administration issued this note at the peak of the Weimar hyperinflation, when local governments across Germany were legally empowered to print their own emergency currency — Notgeld — because the Reichsbank simply could not supply denominations large enough to keep commerce moving. By August 1923, twenty million marks could barely buy a loaf of bread, and notes of this face value had a useful circulation life measured in days before becoming effectively worthless.

Municipal Notgeld of this period was typically printed locally on whatever press and stock were available, which accounts for the considerable variation in paper quality across surviving examples from Kaufbeuren's issues.