5 000 000 Mark

Beuel was a small municipality on the right bank of the Rhine, directly across from Bonn, and like hundreds of German towns in mid-1923 it was forced to issue its own emergency currency — Notgeld — because the Reichsbank simply could not print fast enough to keep pace with hyperinflation. A five-million mark denomination, unthinkable eighteen months earlier, was routine by August 1923. Within weeks it would be laughably inadequate.

The Rhenania-Druckerei in Bonn was a logical choice for a municipality of this size — close, fast, and already handling similar commissions across the region. The watermarked paper was a modest security measure for a note whose purchasing power evaporated faster than any forgery operation could exploit it.