3 000 000 Mark

Stuttgart's Stadtpflege — the municipal treasury office — issued this 3,000,000 Mark note during the hyperinflationary summer of 1923, when the Reichsbank simply could not produce currency fast enough to meet demand. German municipalities, utilities, and private firms were legally authorized to issue Notgeld to bridge the gap, and Stuttgart's administration printed locally rather than waiting on central allocation. The Oberbürgermeister's countersignature alongside Stadtpfleger Scheifele's gave these notes a thin veneer of civic authority in a system where confidence in paper had almost entirely collapsed.

By the time denominations reached seven figures, most notes of this type circulated for days, not weeks, before becoming worthless against the next price adjustment.