5 000 000 Mark

Düren issued its own emergency currency — Notgeld — during the hyperinflationary collapse of 1923, when Reichsbank notes were depreciating faster than they could be printed and municipalities across Germany scrambled to fill the gap. A denomination of five million marks sounds extraordinary; by mid-1923 it was barely enough for a loaf of bread, and notes of this type were frequently superseded by higher denominations within weeks of issue.

The Merkelbach reference numbers 10–11 suggest two distinct serial or color variants within the same emission run — a common practice in municipal Notgeld production, where a single print run might yield distinguishable types now catalogued separately.