Collector's Guide · Germany · October 2026

Why Germany's Railway Printed Its Own Money in 1923

In the summer of 1923 the Deutsche Reichsbahn began paying its bills in notes it printed itself. Here is why, what one of those notes says, and how collectors read them today.

What was Deutsche Reichsbahn money?

Germany's state railways came under the Reich on April 1, 1920, under a treaty that placed them in the hands of the Reich Transport Minister. By 1923 the Reichsbahn was a single national employer with hundreds of thousands of workers to pay, and it ran into the problem every German business faced that year: prices rose faster than the Reichsbank could print notes to pay them.

Towns, states, banks and companies answered that shortage with emergency money, known as Notgeld. Our guides to German Notgeld and Weimar Notgeld from 1914 to 1923 cover the town issues. The Reichsbahn and the Reichspost issued their own as well, and the railway's notes are a category of their own because of how far they reached: a note good at any Reichsbahn cash office was good in every part of the country the trains ran.

Who issued Reichsbahn notes in 1923?

Railway notes came from three levels of the organization, according to the German collectors' site Geldscheine-Online:

The Reich Transport Minister, Berlin

Notes signed for Der Reichsverkehrsminister. They were valid at all Reichsbahn cash offices and later at all public offices in the Reich. This series ran from 1 Million Mark in August 1923 to 50 Billionen Mark, 50 trillion, in November.

The Bavarian branch, Munich

The Zweigstelle Bayern of the transport ministry issued notes valid throughout Bavaria.

Eighteen regional directorates

Each Reichsbahndirektion issued its own notes: Altona, Breslau, Cassel, Dresden, Elberfeld, Erfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Osten (Frankfurt an der Oder), Halle, Hannover, Karlsruhe, Köln, Königsberg, Magdeburg, Münster, Oppeln, Stettin and Stuttgart.

Everyone below them

Stations, cash and freight offices, workshops, the railway workers' union and private railway companies also put out notes of their own.

What does the 1923 Reichsbahn 1 Million Mark note say?

The best-known Reichsbahn note is the 1 Million Mark from the minister's Berlin series. It is printed on one side only, brown on an orange underprint, and the text is a short contract with whoever holds it. Here it is line by line from the note in our stock:

Catalog numbers

Pick S1011a in the Specialized Issues volume of the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money. Deutsches Notgeld volume 13 (Müller and Geiger, 2016) lists it as 002-1a and 002-1b.

Size

About 130 by 70 millimeters. Catalog measurements vary by a few millimeters because the notes were cut by machine in huge numbers.

Watermark

Interlocking squares, according to the German dealer reference Coins of Germany.

Serial numbers

Six digits. Numista records two series: single prefix letters A to Z without J, and double letters AA to RR without II.

Back

Blank.

The date carries a small piece of political history. Wilhelm Groener's term as Reich Transport Minister ended on August 12, 1923, and Rudolf Oeser's began the same day, during the change of government from Wilhelm Cuno to Gustav Stresemann. The note was dated on the day the office it names changed hands.

What could a 1923 Reichsbahn note buy?

The note promised redemption through October 31, 1923. In that window German inflation reached its peak: the Hanke-Krus hyperinflation table puts October 1923 at about 29,500 percent for the month, with prices doubling every 3.7 days. The Berlin bread prices collected by Alpha History show what that meant for a 1 Million Mark note. The figures are order of magnitude, and the loaves column is our arithmetic.

Dated in August, good until the end of October. By October a loaf of bread cost hundreds of times its face value.

How big did Reichsbahn denominations get?

As the autumn went on, the directorates printed bigger and bigger numbers. A few dated examples from the issues pictured by Geldscheine-Online:

Read the German carefully. A Milliarde is a billion (10⁹) and a German Billion is a trillion (10¹²). Collectors who translate Billionen as billions undercount the note by a factor of a thousand.

What were the Reichsbahn's value-stable notes?

Late in 1923 issuers across Germany switched to wertbeständiges Notgeld, value-stable emergency money denominated in gold marks rather than paper marks. The gold mark was pegged to the dollar at the 1914 rate of 4.20 marks, so the common denominations were fractions of a dollar: 0.42 gold mark for a tenth of a dollar, 1.05 for a quarter, 2.10 for a half and 4.20 for a whole dollar. Notgeld.com notes that the notes were not actually backed by gold. The Reich Transport Minister issued one for 8.40 Mark Gold, marked as equal to 2 dollars, dated November 7, 1923.

In mid-November the Rentenmark arrived, exchanging at one Rentenmark for one trillion paper marks, and the end of the paper mark was in sight.

How do you collect Deutsche Reichsbahn notes?

• Start with the Berlin series. The Reich Transport Minister's notes were printed in large runs, so most are not hard to find, and the 1 Million Mark of August 12, 1923 is the classic first piece.
• Collect by directorate. Eighteen regional directorates plus the Bavarian branch is a clear, finite checklist with a map attached.
• Collect by date. A run from August to November traces the steepest part of the 1923 inflation in railway paper alone, from millions to trillions.
• Check the serial series. Single-letter and double-letter prefixes are cataloged as separate varieties of the 1 Million Mark.
• Mind condition. Uniface notes show every stain and fold on the blank back. Uncirculated survivors are the ones to want, and our list of the worst hyperinflations in history shows where 1923 Germany sits among the others.

Frequently asked questions

What was Deutsche Reichsbahn emergency money?

It was money the German national railway printed for itself in 1923, when the Reichsbank could not supply enough marks. The notes were accepted at every Reichsbahn cash office like legal tender until a printed redemption date, and later at public offices across the Reich.

Is a Reichsbahn note the same as a Reichsbanknote?

No. A Reichsbanknote was issued by the Reichsbank, Germany's central bank. A Reichsbahn note was issued by the railway, signed for the Reich Transport Minister or a regional railway directorate. The two names differ by one letter, and dealers mix them up often.

What is the Pick number of the 1923 Reichsbahn 1 Million Mark?

Pick S1011a in the Specialized Issues volume of the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money. The German Deutsches Notgeld catalog by Müller and Geiger lists it as DeNG 13, 002-1a and 002-1b, split by single-letter and double-letter serial series.

What does Reichsverkehrsminister mean?

Reich Minister of Transport, the cabinet minister in charge of the railway after the state railways were placed under the Reich on April 1, 1920. The 1 Million Mark note names the office, not the person.

What does Billionen mean on a German banknote?

Trillions. In German, Milliarde means a billion (10 to the 9th) and Billion means a trillion (10 to the 12th). A Reichsbahn note for 10 Billionen Mark is a 10 trillion mark note in English.

How much was a 1923 1 Million Mark note worth?

It depends on the month. Alpha History's Berlin series puts a loaf of bread at about 100,000 marks in July 1923, about 2 million in September and about 670 million in October. A 1 Million Mark note bought roughly ten loaves in July and less than one in September.

Sources

• Geldscheine-Online: Notgeld der Deutschen Reichsbahn während der Inflation 1923
• Numista: 1,000,000 Mark (Deutsche Reichsbahn), 1923
• Coins of Germany: 1 Million Mark Deutsche Reichsbahn 1923, S1011a
• Wikipedia: List of German transportation ministers
• Notgeld.com: Wertbeständige notgeld, notes of fixed value
• Alpha History: The 1923 hyperinflation
• Hanke and Krus (2012): The Hyperinflation Table, Cato Institute
• Wikipedia: German Papiermark