Operation Bernhard

   The Reich Security Main Office in 1942 introduced a plan to flood Great Britain with counterfeit sterling pound notes with the objective of undermining the British currency. This Nazi “economic weapon” was directed by Schutzstaffel (SS)-SBF Bernhard Kruger, an engineer appointed director of banknote production. In July 1942, orders were sent out from the central office for the economic administration of the concentration camps (K-Z) to the commandants of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Ravensbruck, and Sachsenhausen with the orders that Jewish prisoners in these camps who were qualified as printers, paper experts, and related skills were to be selected for the project. Between 1942 and 1945 as part of the Nazi war effort, there were 142 Jewish prisoners, faced with incessant death threats, who were forced to forge British and later American bank notes worth billions, as well as bonds, stamps, and other documents. The forgery workshop was based in Sachsenhausen. The story of Operation Bernhard was the basis for the 2007 award-winning film The Counterfeiters.