500 000 Mark

Chemnitz's district authority — the Amtshauptmannschaft — issued this note during the summer of 1923, when the Reichsbank's supply of emergency currency simply could not keep pace with hyperinflation. Local administrative bodies across Saxony were forced to print their own Notgeld to meet payroll and enable basic commerce. The half-million Mark face value, once staggering, was already being overtaken by inflation within weeks of printing.

Rats-Druckerei in Glauchau was a regional commercial printer, not a specialist security press. That matters: these notes carry none of the anti-counterfeiting sophistication of Reichsbank issues.