500 000 Mark

Tonndorf-Lohe was a small municipality on the eastern outskirts of Hamburg, and this 500,000 Mark note belongs to the chaotic mid-1923 wave of Notgeld when inflation was accelerating fast enough that municipal authorities were issuing emergency money weekly simply to cover payroll. By August 17th, 500,000 Mark was roughly a day-laborer's wage — a denomination that would have seemed absurd twelve months earlier and insufficient twelve weeks later.

Small Gemeinden like Tonndorf-Lohe rarely had sophisticated printing arrangements. The official stamp and handwritten or rubber-stamped serial numbers were the only anti-counterfeiting measures available, which tells you everything about how quickly these notes were produced and how briefly they were expected to circulate.