5 000 000 Mark

Hamburg's Finanzdeputation issued this note during the hyperinflation peak of 1923, when municipal and regional authorities across Germany were forced to print their own emergency currency — Notgeld — because the Reichsbank simply could not produce denominations fast enough to keep pace with collapsing purchasing power. By the time five-million-mark notes were entering circulation, the figure was already near-obsolete within weeks of printing.

Broscheka & Co. was a Hamburg commercial printer, not a specialist security press. At this denomination level, production speed mattered far more than anti-counterfeiting sophistication — a forger would have struggled to spend fakes before the notes lost value anyway.