50 000 000 000 Mark Reichsbahndirektion

The Reichsbahn-Direktion Dresden was one of dozens of regional railway administrations that issued emergency currency during the hyperinflationary collapse of 1923. German railway directorates had both the institutional authority and the pressing practical need to pay wages — by late 1923, workers demanded daily payment simply to buy food before the mark lost further value overnight. These notgeld issues were a payroll instrument first, circulating currency second.

The fifty-billion-mark denomination places this note in the final, most extreme phase of the inflation, when the Reichsbank itself struggled to print fast enough. It was superseded within weeks by the Rentenmark stabilization of November 1923.