Operation Bernhard

British paper currency

The designs used on British paper currency at the beginning of the Second World War were introduced in 1855 and had been altered only slightly over the intervening years. The notes were made from white rag paper with black printing on one side and showed an engraving of Britannia by Daniel Maclise, RA in the top left-hand corner. The £5, also known as the White Fiver, measured  7 ¹¹⁄₁₆" x  4 ¹¹⁄₁₆" (195mm x 120mm), while the £10, £20 and £50 notes measured  8 ¹⁄₄" x  5 ¹⁄₄" (211mm x 133mm).

The notes had 150 minor marks that acted as security measures to identify forgeries. These were often assumed to be printing errors, and were changed between issues of notes. Each note bore an alphanumeric serial designation and the signature of the Chief Cashier of the Bank of England. Prior to the release of any notes by the Bank of England, all serial numbers were recorded in ledgers so the bank could verify their liabilities; these numbers were checked when the notes circulated back through the bank.

A watermark appeared across the middle of every note; it differed depending on the value of the currency and the alphanumeric combinations used. According to John Keyworth, the curator of the Bank of England Museum, as the paper currency had never been successfully counterfeited, the Bank of England "was a little complacent about the design of its notes and the production of them"; he described the notes as "technologically ... very simple".

Origins of the plan

At a meeting on 18 September 1939 Arthur Nebe, the head of the Reichskriminalpolizeiamt—the central criminal investigation department of Nazi Germany—put forward a proposal to use known counterfeiters to forge British paper currency. The forged notes—amounting to £30 billion—would then be dropped over Britain, causing a financial collapse and the loss of its world currency status. Nebe's superior officer, Reinhard Heydrich, liked the plan, but was unsure of using the police files to find the available individuals. Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda, described it as "einen grotesken Plan", "a grotesque plan", although he saw it had potential. The main objection to the plan came from Walther Funk, the Reich Minister for Economic Affairs who said it would breach international law. Adolf Hitler, the German Chancellor, gave the final approval for the operation to proceed.

Although the discussion was supposed to be secret, in November 1939 Michael Palairet, Britain's ambassador to Greece, met a Russian émigré who gave him full details of the plan discussed at the 18 September meeting; according to the émigré's report, the plan was titled "Offensive against Sterling and Destruction of its Position as World Currency". Palairet reported the information to London, who alerted the US Department of the Treasury and the Bank of England. Although the Bank considered the existing security measures were sufficient, in 1940 it released a blue emergency £1 note which had a metal security thread running through the paper. It also banned the import of pound notes for the duration of the war in 1943, stopped producing new £5 notes and warned the public about the danger of counterfeit currency.

Operation Andreas

On receipt of Hitler's go-ahead Heydrich opened a counterfeiting unit under the operational title Unternehmen Andreas (Operation Andreas). Heydrich's order to set up the unit stated that

This is not to be a forgery or counterfeiting in the usual sense, but authorised facsimile production. The notes must be such a perfect copy of the original that even the most experienced bank-note experts cannot tell the difference.

The forgery unit was set up in Berlin within the technical department of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), headed by Alfred Naujocks, an SS major; daily operational control fell under the auspices of Naujocks's technical director, Dr Albert Langer, a mathematician and code-breaker. The pair broke the task down into three stages: producing identical paper; preparing identical printing plates to the British notes; and duplicating the British serial numbering system.

The Germans decided to concentrate on the notes which had the largest number in circulation, the £5. Samples of British notes were sent to technical colleges for analysis, which reported back that it was rag paper with no added cellulose. Naujocks and Langer realised that the paper would have to be hand made. The colour of the first samples differed from the original; the Germans had used new rags. After tests at the Hahnemühle paper factory, the rags were used by local factories and then cleaned before being used to make the paper; the colours of the counterfeit and original notes then matched. When the initial paper samples were produced, at a factory in Spechthausen, they looked identical to British notes in normal light, but looked dull in ultraviolet light when compared to the originals. Langer surmised it was because of the chemical composition of the water used for making the paper and in the ink. He duplicated the chemical balance of British water in order to make the colours match.

To break the arrangement of the alphanumeric serial designation, Langer worked with banking experts, examining records of currency from the previous 20 years in order to replicate the correct order. No records were kept by Operation Andreas and the method of how the Germans identified the correct sequences is not known; the paper historian Peter Bower states that it is possible that techniques adapted from those used in cryptanalysis were used to break the sequences. The German engravers working on the engraving plates struggled to reproduce the vignette of Britannia, which they nicknamed "Bloody Britannia" because it was so difficult. After seven months the forgers finished what they thought was a perfect copy, although Kenworthy states that the figure's eyes are incorrect.

By late 1940 Naujocks had been removed from his position after he fell out of favour with Heydrich. The counterfeiting unit continued under Langer before he left in early 1942 at which point it closed down; he later claimed that over 18 months, the unit had produced around £3 million in forged notes, although the historian Anthony Pirie puts the figure at £500,000. Most of the currency produced in Operation Andreas was never used.

Revival under Krüger

In July 1942, following changes in the aim of the plan, Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler revived the operation. Whereas the original plan was to bring about the collapse of the British economy through dropping the notes over the UK, Himmler's new intention was to use the counterfeit money to finance German Intelligence operations. The security services under Himmler's control were poorly funded, and the counterfeit funds were used to cover the financial shortfalls in revenue from the Reichsbank.

SS Major Bernhard Krüger replaced Naujocks; searching through the offices used daily by Operation Andreas, he found the copper engraving plates and the machinery, although some of the wire gauzes used to make the watermarks were bent. He was ordered to use the Jewish prisoners incarcerated in the Nazi concentration camps, and set up his unit in blocks 18 and 19 at Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The blocks were isolated from the rest of the camp by additional barbed wire fences, and a SS-Totenkopfverbände unit was assigned as guards.

Krüger visited several other concentration camps to assemble the people he needed, primarily selecting those with skills in draftsmanship, engraving, printing and banking. In September 1942 the first 26 prisoners for Operation Bernhard arrived at Sachsenhausen; 80 more arrived in December. When met by Krüger, he called them in the formal and polite form Sie, rather than the more demeaning du, which was normally used when the Nazis spoke to a Jew. Several of the prisoners selected later reported that Krüger had interviewed them for the role, and treated them with politeness and good manners. He also provided the prisoners with cigarettes, newspapers, extra rations and a radio. Prisoners had a ping pong table and they would play with the guards and among themselves; evenings of amateur theatricals also took place, staged by the prisoners, with a mixed audience of guards and counterfeiters; Krüger provided musicians for musical numbers.

The printing equipment was also delivered in December, and 12,000 sheets of banknote paper a month began to arrive from Hahnemühle; it was large enough for four notes to be printed on each sheet. Production of counterfeit notes started in January 1943; it took a year for production to return to the levels achieved in Operation Andreas.

Each section of the process was overseen by one of the prisoners, and the day-to-day operations were run by Oscar Stein, a former office manager and bookkeeper. Two twelve-hour shifts ensured non-stop production, with around 140 prisoners working. The printed sheets, each containing four notes, were dried and cropped using a steel ruler; the edges were roughened to imitate the deckle finish of the British notes. The operation peaked between mid-1943 and to mid-1944, with approximately 65,000 notes a month produced from six flat-bed printing presses.

To age the notes, 40 or 50 prisoners stood in two columns and passed the notes among them to accumulate dirt, sweat and general wear and tear. Some of the prisoners would fold and refold the notes, others would pin the corners to replicate how a bank clerk would collect bundles of notes. British names and addresses were written on the reverse, as happened with some English notes, and numbers were written on the font – duplicating how a bank teller would mark the value of a bundle. Four grades of note quality were introduced: grade 1 was the highest quality, to be used in neutral counties and by Nazi spies; grade 2 was to be used to pay collaborators; grade 3 was for notes that were to be possibly dropped over Britain; grade 4 were too flawed to be of use and were destroyed.

In May 1944 Ernst Kaltenbrunner, an SS Obergruppenführer (general) in the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Main Security Office; RSHA) ordered that the counterfeiting unit begin to produce forged US dollars. The artwork on the notes was more complex than that of the British currency which caused problems for the forgers. Additional challenges they faced included the paper, which was manufactured to contain minute silk threads, and the intaglio printing process, which added small ridges to the paper.

The prisoners realised that if they managed to fully counterfeit the dollars, their lives would no longer be safeguarded by the work they were undertaking, so they slowed their progress as much as they could. The journalist Lawrence Malkin, who wrote a history of Operation Bernhard, writes that prisoners considered this to have the tacit approval of Krüger, who would face front-line duty if Operation Bernhard ended. In August 1944 Salomon Smolianoff, a convicted forger, was added to the production team at Sachsenhausen to aid the counterfeiting of US dollars, although he also assisted in the quality-checking the pound notes. The Jewish prisoners working on the operation at the time complained to Krüger at having to work with a criminal and he was given his own room to sleep in.

In late 1944 the prisoners had counterfeited the reverse of the dollar, and the obverse by January 1945. Twenty samples of the $100 note were produced—without the serial number, whose algorithm was still being examined—and shown to Himmler and banking experts. The standard of engraving and printing was considered excellent, although the paper used was technically inferior to the genuine notes.

Laundering and use of the forged notes

The counterfeit money was transported from Sachsenhausen to Schloss Labers, an SS-run facility in the South Tyrol. It was put through a money laundering operation run by Friedrich Schwend (de), who had been running an illegal currency and smuggling business since the 1930s. He negotiated a deal in which he would be paid 33.3% of the money he laundered; 25% was given to his agents undertaking the work—as payment to them and their sub-agents, and for expenses—leaving him with 8.3%. He recruited what he called "Salesmen" in various territories, and built a network of 50 agents and sub agents; some of these were Jewish, deliberately selected because there was less chance of authorities would consider them to be working for the Nazis. He informed his agents that the money had been seized from the banks of occupied countries.

Schwend was given two objectives: to exchange the counterfeit money for genuine Swiss francs or US dollars; and to assist with the funding of special operations, including buying black market arms from the Yugoslav Partisans then selling them to pro-Nazi groups in Southeast Europe. He also arranged for the counterfeit notes to pay the Turkish agent Elyesa Bazna—code named Cicero—for his work in obtaining secrets from the British ambassador in Ankara, Turkey. Counterfeit notes with a face value of £100,000 were used to obtain information that helped to free the Italian leader Benito Mussolini in the Gran Sasso raid in September 1943.

Final stages of the war

Between late February and early March 1945, with the advance of the Allied armies, all production of notes at Sachsenhausen ceased. The equipment and supplies was packed and transported, with the prisoners, to the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria, arriving on 12 March. Shortly afterwards Krüger arranged for a further transfer to the Redl-Zipf series of tunnels where they were to restart production. The order to resume production was soon rescinded, and the prisoners were ordered to destroy the cases of money they had with them. That which was not burnt by the prisoners was loaded onto trucks with the printing equipment and sunk in the Toplitz and Grundlsee lakes.

At the start of May, Operation Bernhard was officially closed down and the prisoners transported from the caves to the nearby Ebensee concentration camp. The prisoners were divided into three groups, and the truck was to make trips to and from the camp. An order had been issued that once the prisoners were together at Ebensee, they were to be killed. The truck delivered the first two groups—the men were housed separately from the general camp population—but the vehicle broke down on the third journey; the men in the last group were marched to the camp, which took two days. Because of the delay with the third journey, on 5 May the first two groups were released from their isolation into the general population and their SS guards fled. That afternoon the third group arrived at the camp. When the guards learned what had happened to the first two groups, they also released their prisoners into the main prison population and fled. The Americans arrived the following day and liberated the camp.

Estimates of the number and value of notes printed during Operation Bernhard vary from a total of £132,610,945 (of which £10,368,445 were sent to the RHSA central office), up to £300 million (of which £125 million were usable notes).

Aftermath and legacy

Krüger hid at his home until November 1946 when he turned himself over to the British authorities. Forging an enemy's currency was not a war crime; he faced no charges. He was detained until early 1947 when he was handed to the French. They attempted to persuade him to forge passports for them, but he refused; he was released in November 1948. He underwent a denazification process, during which statements were produced from the forger-inmates whose lives he had been responsible for saving. He later worked for the Hahnemühle paper company. In 1965 the East German writer Julius Mader published Der Banditenschatz, an attack on the West German government for harbouring Krüger.

Schwend amassed a fortune from Operation Bernhard. He was captured by American forces in June 1945, who tried to use him to assist in setting up a counterintelligence network in Germany, the Gehlen Organization. After he was caught trying to defraud the network, he fled to Peru. Although he periodically acted as an informant for Peruvian intelligence, he was arrested for currency smuggling and selling state secrets. After a two-year prison sentence, he was deported to West Germany where he was tried for a wartime murder in 1979; he was given a suspended sentence for manslaughter.

Lake Toplitz has been the site of several large-scale searches. In 1958 an expedition located several cases of the counterfeit money from Operation Bernhard and a book that detailed the Bank of England's numbering system. Following the death of a diver in the lake in 1963—his two companions on the lake included "a former Nazi secret agent and ... a German business man mentioned in connection with counterfeit gold coins"—the Austrian government undertook a month-long search of the lake, during which they recovered more boxes of notes. The zoologist Hans Fricke from the Max Planck Institute searched the lake bottom for several years for rare aquatic life; in 1989 he took Krüger in a mini-submarine on one of his exploratory trips. In 2000 the submersible that was used to search the wreck of RMS Titanic was used to survey the lake floor; several boxes of notes were seen on the lake floor and some were recovered, witnessed by Adolf Burger, a former prisoner involved in the counterfeiting operation.

On seeing the quality of the notes, one bank official described them as "the most dangerous ever seen". Between £15 to 20 million-worth of counterfeit notes were in general circulation at the end of the war. With such a volume in general circulation, in April 1943 the Bank of England stopped releasing all notes of £10 and above. In February 1957 a new £5 banknote was issued; it was blue, printed on both sides and "relied on subtle colour changes and detailed machine engraving" for security Other denominations were also reintroduced: the £10 in February 1964, £20 in July 1970 and the £50 note in March 1981.

The Tilhas Tizig Gesheften, a small group formed from the British Army's Jewish Brigade, obtained a supply of counterfeit pounds from Jaacov Levy, one of Schwend's money-laundering agents. The forged notes were used to buy equipment and to bring displaced persons to Palestine, in defiance of the British blockade of the territory.

Several memoirs have been published by former prisoners, which include the 1949 Norwegian account Falskmynter i blokk 19 by Moritz Nachtstern and Des Teufels Werkstatt the 1983 German language account by Adolf Burger. Both works have subsequently been translated into English; several histories about the operation have also been published.

In 1981 Private Schulz, a fictional version of Operation Bernhard, was broadcast on the BBC as a comedy drama. The television serial starred Michael Elphick and Ian Richardson. In 2007 Burger's memoirs were used as the basis for a film adaption, The Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher), which tells the story of Salomon Sorowitsch, a character loosely based on the lives of Smolianoff and Burger. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 80th Academy Awards.

It is the policy of the Bank of England to redeem all withdrawn notes for current currency at the face value shown on the note; this does not apply to counterfeit currency. Examples of counterfeits from Operation Bernhard have appeared at auction and been sold through dealers for a higher face value than the original £5. There are also examples of the notes in the museum of the National Bank of Belgium and the Bank of England Museum.