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500 000 000 Mark
| Issuer | Stadt Düsseldorf (City of Düsseldorf) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | Typographically bold letterpress note printed in dark brown on cream paper with a tan guilloche underprint at centre. The denomination '500 MILLIONEN MARK' is set in large, decoratively shaded block lettering within an ornate lozenge-shaped guilloche vignette, above the issuer name 'Stadt Düsseldorf' in Gothic script. A vertical panel on the right margin carries the numeral '500' and the word 'MILLIONEN' in large rotated text against a pale green underprint, while the upper left bears the series designation 'REIHE II' and a red serial number appears at upper right. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | REIHE II 500 MILLIONEN MARK Stadt Düsseldorf Ausgegeben auf Grund der Ermächtigung des Reichsfinanzministeriums. Die Kassen der Stadt Düsseldorf zahlen dem Vorzeiger Mk. 500 000 000. Der Einlösungstag wird bekanntgegeben. Düsseldorf, 20. Sept. 1923. Der Oberbürgermeister i.V. |
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| Comments |
By late 1923, German municipal authorities were printing their own emergency currency because the Reichsbank simply could not produce notes fast enough to keep pace with hyperinflation. Düsseldorf's 500-million-Mark Notgeld is a product of that administrative chaos — a city government acting as a de facto central bank for its own population, issuing denominations that would have seemed absurd twelve months earlier.
Düsseldorf was under French and Belgian occupation at the time, a consequence of the Ruhr occupation that began in January 1923. Local note issues therefore carried an additional political dimension: German civil authorities printing currency in defiance of occupying powers who had their own ideas about how the region's economy should function.