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5 000 000 Mark
| Issuer | Stadt Warendorf (Magistrat / Stadt-Sparkasse) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | Printed in deep red and black on cream paper, the obverse carries a central vignette of a panoramic townscape of Warendorf circa 1550–1600, rendered in fine letterpress line engraving within a rectangular frame. The denomination "Fünf Millionen Mark" is set in large Gothic blackletter script across the upper portion of the note, flanked by the numeral "5 000 000" in each upper corner, all within an ornamental foliate border. Below the vignette, the issuing text in Gothic script gives the date "Warendorf, 13. Aug. 1923" and the issuing authorities, while an embossed circular municipal seal of Warendorf appears to the right. |
|---|---|
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| Protection description | Dry embossed circular municipal seal of the Stadt-Sparkasse Warendorf, bearing the town arms with a fortified gate and lion supporters, applied to both obverse and reverse. |
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| Comments |
Warendorf's five-million Mark note belongs to the frantic middle phase of the 1923 German hyperinflation, when municipal and savings bank authorities across Westphalia were printing emergency Notgeld simply to meet weekly payrolls. By the time a note of this denomination reached circulation, its purchasing power was already eroding by the hour — five million marks in mid-1923 could buy roughly what a few hundred marks had bought a year earlier.
The embossed seal was the Stadt-Sparkasse's primary authentication device, reflecting the near-total absence of sophisticated security infrastructure at the local level. Printed in-house at Warendorf rather than contracted to a specialist firm, the production quality is accordingly modest.