500 Millionen Mark - Ruhr und Rhein

By mid-1923, Germany's hyperinflation had so outpaced paper note production that municipalities and regional bodies issued their own emergency coinage — Notgeld — simply to keep commerce moving. This piece, denominated at 500 million Mark, was issued to serve the Rhineland and Ruhr, a region already under French and Belgian military occupation since January 1923. The occupation itself had triggered the final, catastrophic acceleration of inflation: Berlin's policy of "passive resistance" meant the government paid striking workers in newly printed marks, destroying what remained of the currency's value.

A denomination of 500 million marks would have bought roughly a loaf of bread — briefly.