20 000 000 Mark Landkreis Bochum

One of thousands of Notgeld issues printed during the hyperinflationary crisis of 1923, this note was authorized by the Kreisausschuss — the district committee — of Landkreis Bochum, one of the administrative bodies in the Ruhr industrial belt that were forced to produce their own emergency currency when the Reichsbank could not supply enough printed money to keep pace with collapsing purchasing power. By the time denominations this large were entering circulation, the rate of inflation was accelerating faster than new notes could be distributed.

The Ruhr occupation by French and Belgian forces earlier that year had throttled coal and steel output across the region, compounding the monetary collapse with an industrial one.