50 000 000 Mark

Issued at the height of the German hyperinflation of 1923, this Fifty Million Mark note was produced by the Kreissparkasse Neuwied under authority of the Kreisausschuss — the district committee — of the Neuwied administrative district. Like hundreds of similar municipal and savings-bank issues that year, it exists because the Reichsbank simply could not print fast enough to keep pace with collapsing purchasing power. District-level institutions were formally permitted to issue emergency currency, known as Notgeld, to plug the gap.

By the time denominations reached the tens of millions, notes like this one had a useful circulation life measured in days before the face value became inadequate.