50 000 000 000 Mark Rösrath in Hoffnungsthal

Rösrath's Bürgermeisterei issued this fifty-billion-mark note during the catastrophic autumn of 1923, when municipal and local authorities across Germany were compelled to print their own emergency currency — Notgeld — simply to meet payroll. By October 1923, the Reichsbank's official notes were losing purchasing power faster than they could be physically distributed to smaller communities, leaving bodies like this one to fill the gap with whatever local printer was available. Emil Pilgram in Hoffnungsthal was that printer.

The denomination itself tells the story. Fifty billion marks issued by a small municipal office outside Cologne.