5 000 000 Mark

Dresden's municipal authority, like dozens of German cities in the summer and autumn of 1923, was forced into the absurd position of printing its own high-denomination emergency currency as the Reichsmark collapsed in real time. The Stadt Dresden notes of this period are Notgeld in name but were treated as functional money — Reichsbank supply simply could not keep pace with the daily price adjustments that hyperinflation demanded.

The watermark on this issue is notable given the otherwise desperate production circumstances. Local paper stocks with security features were increasingly difficult to source by mid-1923, and many municipalities abandoned them entirely before stabilization came in November with the introduction of the Rentenmark.