500 000 Marks

The Polska Krajowa Kasa Pożyczkowa — the Polish State Loan Bank — was itself a wartime creation of the German occupying administration, established in 1916 to manage currency in the occupied Polish territories. By 1923 it was issuing notes with face values in the hundreds of thousands, a direct consequence of the hyperinflationary spiral tearing through the region's post-partition economies. This 500,000 Mark denomination was not an outlier; it was a practical necessity.

The marka polska was replaced by the złoty in 1924 at a rate of 1,800,000 mareks to one złoty, which gives some indication of where things stood.