500 000 Mark Rheydt

Rheydt was an industrial textile town in the Rhineland — and also the birthplace of Joseph Goebbels, though that connection postdates this note by decades. In 1923 the town's municipal authority, like hundreds of German Gemeinden, was forced into emergency currency issuance as Reichsbank notes became worthless faster than they could be printed. The 500,000 Mark denomination, unthinkable two years earlier, was by mid-1923 barely enough for a tram fare.

Otto Berger was a local Rheydt printer, not a specialist currency house. That matters — quality control on Notgeld from small commercial printers varied considerably, and paper stock was often whatever was available.