5 000 000 Mark Krupp

Krupp's private notgeld issues of 1923 are among the more consequential emergency money of the hyperinflation period — not because the firm was unique in issuing it, but because of the scale. Fried. Krupp AG was one of the largest employers in Germany, and keeping its workforce paid in denominations that retained any purchasing power from one day to the next was an operational problem of considerable magnitude. By mid-1923, the Reichsmark was losing value faster than the Reichsdruckerei could supply notes, so major industrial firms were legally permitted to issue their own.

The 5,000,000 Mark denomination reflects a specific window of the collapse — late summer 1923, before the zeros climbed further still into the billions.