page_title: Operation Bernhard
section_title: Revival under Krüger
hierarchical_section_title: Operation Bernhard / Revival under Krüger
caption_attribution_description: Turm A des Konzentrationslagers Sachsenhausen (Brandenburg)
context_page_description: 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. The unit closed in early 1942 after its head, Alfred Naujocks, fell out of favour with his superior officer, Reinhard Heydrich.
  The operation was revived later in the year; the aim was changed to forging money to finance German intelligence operations. Instead of a specialist unit within the SD, prisoners from Nazi concentration camps were selected and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp to work under SS Major Bernhard Krüger. The unit produced British notes until mid-1945; estimates vary of the number and value of notes printed, from £132.6 million up to £300 million.
context_section_description: 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. 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 mid-1944, with approximately 65,000 notes a month produced from six flat-bed printing presses.
  To age the notes, between 40 and 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 front – 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 countries 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.
  The Nazi authorities were so pleased with the results of the operation that twelve prisoners, three of whom were Jewish, were awarded the War Merit Medal while six of the guards received the War Merit Cross, 2nd class.
  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
caption: The entrance to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where the forgers operated
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