500 000 000 Mark Homberg am Niederrhein

Homberg am Niederrhein — now absorbed into Duisburg — issued this 500-million-mark note at the absolute peak of the Weimar hyperinflation, when denominations that would have been unthinkable two years earlier became routine municipal necessity. German cities, towns, and even private firms were authorized to issue their own emergency currency — Notgeld — to fill a void the Reichsbank simply could not cover with physical notes fast enough.

By late 1923, the printing presses had so thoroughly destroyed the mark's purchasing power that a 500-million-mark note represented genuine small-change territory. The Rentenmark reform of November 1923 rendered the entire series worthless within weeks of issue.