Operation Bernhard

Operation Bernhard was an exercise by Nazi Germany to forge British bank notes. Initial plan was to drop the notes over Britain to bring about a collapse of the British economy during the Second World War. The unit successfully duplicated the rag paper used by the British, produced near-identical engraving blocks and deduced the algorithm used to create the alpha-numeric serial code on each note. Estimates vary of the number and value of notes printed, from £132. 6 million up to £300 million.

About Operation Bernhard in brief

Operation Bernhard was an exercise by Nazi Germany to forge British bank notes. The initial plan was to drop the notes over Britain to bring about a collapse of the British economy during the Second World War. The first phase was run from early 1940 by the Sicherheitsdienst under the title Unternehmen Andreas. The unit successfully duplicated the rag paper used by the British, produced near-identical engraving blocks and deduced the algorithm used to create the alpha-numeric serial code on each note. Estimates vary of the number and value of notes printed, from £132. 6 million up to £300 million. By the time the unit ceased production, they had perfected the artwork for US dollars, although the paper and serial numbers were still being analysed. The counterfeit money was laundered in exchange for money and other assets. Counterfeit notes from the operation were used to pay the Turkish agent Elyesa Bazna for his work in obtaining British secrets from the British ambassador in Ankara. £100,000 was used to obtain information that helped to free the Italian leader Benito Mussolini in the Gran Sasso raid in September 1943. Much of the output of the unit was dumped into the Toplitz and Grundlsee lakes at the end of the war, but enough went into general circulation that the Bank of England stopped releasing new notes and issued a new design after the war.

The operation has been dramatised in a comedy-drama miniseries Private Schulz by the BBC and in a 2007 film, The Counterfeitsers. The notes were made from white rag paper with black printing on one side and showed anengraving of Britannia by Daniel Maclise of the Royal Academy of Arts in the top left-hand corner. Each note bore an alphanumeric serial designation and the signature of the Chief Cashier of the Bank. of England. These were often assumed to be printing errors, and were changed between issues of notes. The notes had 150 minor marks that acted as security measures to identify forgeries. They differed depending on the value of the currency and the alphan numeric serial designation used. The £5, also known as the White Fiver, measured 7 11⁄16 in × 4 11 �16 in, while the £10, £20 and £50 notes measured 8 1⁄4 in  5 1 �4  in in. These were all printed on black rag paper and had a watermark across the middle of every note to act as a security measure. Because of an overly precise interpretation of a German order, the prisoners were not executed on their arrival; they were liberated shortly afterwards by the American Army. In early 1945 the unit moved to Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria, then to the Redl-Zipf series of tunnels and finally to Ebensee concentration camp.

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