Nazi notes!

jonniebgood1

This story is updated on BBC today in relation to coverage on radio 4. I thought it may be of interest. We hear more of the detail that went into allied interference in German matters than the other way around.

The Nazis produced counterfeit sterling with a face value of £134m in total.

That was the equivalent of 10% of all sterling in circulation.

The newly released files include a report on currency, written by banker Sir Edward Reid of MI5's section B1B in August 1945.

He said a captured SS Officer revealed that the Germans had started to make fake notes in 1940, planning to scatter them from the air during the invasion of Britain, creating confusion, damaging confidence.

....

Although MI5 did not realise it at the time, the notes were being made at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp by prisoners, many of whom were Jewish.

I met one, Adolph Burger, in 2007. He proudly showed me one of his £5 notes.

On watermarked paper, with elegant copperplate script, and engraving of Britannia, it was a perfect counterfeit.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

In general it can be said that the German object of destroying confidence abroad in Bank of England notes has been achieved”

Sir Edward Reid

He knew, because there was a pinhole in the Britannia, that it was a Sachsenhausen product.

The prisoners had marked these notes.

Not all the notes were used, but as early as 1943 the Bank of England were concerned.

According to John Keyworth, the Bank's historian, that was when all notes with a face value of £10 or more were recalled.

MI5 knew that German agents arriving in Britain were supplied with fake notes, and that counterfeits with a face value of thousands were being used in neutral countries.

The fake notes circulated in neutral Portugal and Spain, partly with the objective of raising money for the Nazi cause, and later turned up in Egypt.

After D-Day in June 1944, large numbers of these notes started to appear in Britain.

According to MI5, Allied soldiers - mostly Polish and American - had been selling army stores on the black market for French francs and then trading these for discounted sterling notes.

.....
this trade had been falling off in August 1945, according to Sir Edward the only way to restore confidence in the currency would be for the Bank of England to recall all notes with a face value of £5 or more, and print new ones.

That is what happened.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17070943

Morlar

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

This story is updated on BBC today in relation to coverage on radio 4. I thought it may be of interest. We hear more of the detail that went into allied interference in German matters than the other way around.

There is quite a well known movie on that exact subject :

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0813547/

marcsignal

Operation Bernhard

Called after the SS officer Bernhard Krüger (photo) who was charged with the task. He was dealing with another guy called Friedrich Schwendt (photo), who was a slippery customer to say the least, and had an alias 'Dr. Wendig'. In 1950s he is said to have lived in Peru/Chile.
It's interesting to note that Schwendt is using a masonic hand sign in the linked Photo

The Daily Telegraph (London), 29 April 1979

Hitler’s master forger, Friedrich Schwendt, will go on trial in Munich tomorrow charged with a wartime manslaughter. Schwendt, now 72, was the key figure in ‘Operation Bernhard,’ the Nazi plot to undermine the British economy by swamping the world with forged sterling notes in the last year of the war.
“Schwend, alias Dr Wendig, held the rank of SS colonel and was in charge of the distribution apparatus at Castle Labers, near Merano in northern Italy. He later told his American captors that the counterfeit money amounted to nearly £15 million.
“In August 1944, one of his collaborators, Teofilio Kamber, was arrested while trying to run off with a bag of forged notes. He was shot dead on the way to court-martial, apparently on the orders of Reich security chief Ernst Kaltenbrunner. The West German prosecutors allege that Schwend shot the man after telling him to run away.”

Don't know the outcome of the trial.

Further reading:

Delgado, Arturo R. 'Counterfeit Reich: Hitler's Secret Swindle' (2006) ISBN 978-1424103898

Malkin, Lawrence 'Krueger's Men: The Secret Nazi Counterfeit Plot and the Prisoners of Block 19' (2006) ISBN 0-316-05700-2 ISBN 978-0-316005700-4

Malkin, Lawrence 'Hitlers Geldfaelscher' (2006) ISBN 978-3-7857-3349-7 (ab 1.2. 2007)

Burke, Bryan 'Nazi Counterfeiting of British Currency during World War II: Operation Andrew and Operation Bernhard' (1987) ISBN 0-9618274-0-8 (Limited edition of 1000)

A look at Operation Bernhard PDF download

There was a great C4 Documentary about this also, called 'The Great Nazi Cash Swindle'. I had a look for it on YT but it's not there

EDIT: Found it here but takes ages to load. The guy who played Jack Plapler in the Counterfitters movie, looked remarkably like the real Jack Plapler of 1944 that you will see in this documentary.