5000 Mark Bayerische Notenbank

The Bayerische Notenbank was one of four surviving German state banks still legally permitted to issue currency under the Reichsbank Law of 1875, a privilege the Weimar government repeatedly tried and failed to abolish. This 5000 Mark note appeared in 1922 as hyperinflation was accelerating sharply — a denomination unthinkable just two years earlier had become a routine transactional value by the time of printing.

Bavaria's political tensions with Berlin during this period gave the Notenbank an added layer of local significance; Bavarian authorities were in no hurry to cede monetary functions to a central government they distrusted. The watermark is the sole security provision, modest even by the standards of the day.