500 000 000 Mark

Trier issued its own emergency currency — Notgeld — because the Reichsbank simply could not print fast enough to keep pace with hyperinflation in 1923. By the time notes of this denomination were reaching circulation in late 1923, the German mark was collapsing so rapidly that the ink was barely dry before the face value became economically trivial. Municipal authorities across Germany were effectively operating as de facto currency issuers out of administrative necessity, not legal ambition.

The Trierer Druckerei Gesellschaft was a local commercial printer, not a security press. That the city had to rely on it speaks directly to the breakdown of normal monetary infrastructure that autumn.