5 000 000 Mark Reichsbahn in Bayern

The Reichsverkehrsministerium's Bavarian railway branch issued its own emergency currency during the hyperinflationary collapse of 1923 — a reminder that the German state railway system, as a major employer and commercial entity, faced the same practical problem as every other large institution: wage day arrived faster than the Reichsbank could supply usable denominations. Notgeld issued by the Reichsbahn divisions had legal backing within their own payroll structures, though it circulated well beyond railway workers in the immediate region.

Carl Gerber was a Munich commercial printer, not a specialist security printer, and the production quality of this series reflects that. The five-million-mark face value places this firmly in the late summer or autumn of 1923, when denominations were climbing by orders of magnitude week to week.