5 000 000 000 Mark Norddeutscher Lloyd

Norddeutscher Lloyd — the Bremen shipping company — was among the many large German commercial enterprises authorized to issue notgeld during the hyperinflation of 1923, when the Reichsbank could not supply currency fast enough to keep pace with collapsing purchasing power. By the time denominations reached the billions, the notes were often worth less on the day of receipt than when they were printed. A five-billion-mark note from this period represents the autumn peak of that collapse, roughly October 1923, when the exchange rate against the dollar was deteriorating by the hour.

Carl Schünemann was a well-established Bremen printer, which made local procurement logical for a company whose administrative center was in the same city.