500 000 Mark

Ahrweiler's Kreisausschuss — the district executive committee — issued this 500,000 Mark note during the hyperinflation peak of 1923, when the Reichsbank's supply of emergency currency consistently failed to keep pace with collapsing purchasing power. District and municipal authorities across Germany were legally permitted to issue their own Notgeld to fill the gap, and the Kreis Ahrweiler, covering the wine-producing Ahr valley region of the Rhineland, was among hundreds of local bodies that exercised this right.

By mid-1923, half a million marks was barely sufficient for daily transactions — within weeks of issue, such denominations were already obsolete.