5 000 000 Mark

Erfurt issued its own emergency currency — Notgeld — during the hyperinflation of 1923 because the Reichsbank simply could not print and distribute money fast enough to keep pace with collapsing purchasing power. By the time this five-million-mark note entered circulation, that denomination was worth less each afternoon than it had been that morning. Municipal authorities across Germany were effectively left to improvise their own monetary supply.

Arthur Kirchner's involvement through AK Kunstanstalt gives this note a locally designed character unusual among the flood of hurriedly produced Notgeld of the period.