500 000 Mark

Spremberg's municipal bank issued this note at the height of Germany's hyperinflationary collapse in 1923, when local authorities across the country were empowered to print their own emergency currency — Notgeld — simply to keep commerce functioning. The Reichsbank could not produce denominations fast enough to keep pace with the daily devaluation, so the burden fell to city banks, chambers of commerce, and even private firms.

Kurt Görisch was a local Spremberg printer, not a specialist security printer. The presence of a watermark on a provincially produced note of this period is worth noting — many comparable issues from small towns dispensed with security features entirely.