3 000 000 Mark Reichsbahndirektion

The Reichsbahn-Direktion Dresden issued this note as Notgeld — emergency money — during the hyperinflationary collapse of 1923, when the German state railway administration in Dresden found itself unable to pay workers in Reichsmark fast enough to keep pace with daily price movements. Railway directorates across Germany were authorized to issue their own scrip precisely because the Reichsbank could not supply physical currency in sufficient volume. Dresden's directorate was one of several that printed regionally, keeping denominations synchronized with the week's wage requirements rather than any stable monetary baseline.

Three million marks sounds extraordinary; by mid-1923 it barely covered a tram fare.