Germany's Most Grotesque Secret to Win WW2

as world war ii began germany hatched one of its most devious and notorious plots to bring britain to its knees instead of bombing the country with the power of explosives germany would bomb its enemy with money operation bernhard began forging british banknotes of such quality that one bank of england official called them quote the most dangerous ever seen the intent was to collapse the british economy and sow chaos by showering its citizens with free money falling from the sky the unit in charge of replicating the money successfully duplicated the rag paper used by the british engraving their identical blocks the germans also cracked the algorithm that gave each banknote its alphanumeric serial code it was only through the capture and interrogation of german intelligence leader alfred naughts that the plot was eventually foiled [Music] the pound the british pound wasn't the hardest currency to forge but it wasn't the easiest the designs used during the war period had been introduced in 1855 and had only slightly changed since then the bills were printed on white rag paper primarily made of cotton on the top left hand corner one side showed black printing and an engraving of britannia the personification of the united kingdom as designed by daniel mclease from the royal academy of arts although the five pound note was smaller the 10 20 and 50 pound were all the same size however as a security measure the notes also featured almost 150 minor marks changed between issues and often mistaken as printing errors to ensure they each were real the notes had alphanumeric serial numbers they were also signed by the bank of england's chief cashier before notes were released by the bank of england all serial numbers were recorded in ledgers therefore any build passed back to the bank could be checked depending on this number and value each banknote had a watermark in the middle of the bill later the curator of the bank of england museum john keyworth noted the english had become quote a little complacent about the design of its notes and the production of them a grotesque business the original plan was proposed in september of 1939 at a meeting of the reich's criminal policy or the central criminal investigation department of germany arthur neba a high level security officer for the german government raised the idea he suggested forging 30 billion pounds afterward the money would be distributed all over britain leading to financial collapse as well as a decline in britain's status and global currency [Music] his superior officer favored the plan but didn't want to skulk around police files looking for criminals to assist the reich minister of propaganda responded to it in disgust saying it was quote grotesque but still admitted there was potential in the idea the main detractor against the plan was walter funk the third reich's minister for economic affairs he worried that the project was sharply contradicting international law of course neba only really needed support from one man adolf hitler approved it although the meeting was supposed to be secret the british ambassador to greece michael paleret was briefed on the plan by a russian emigre in november of 1939. at that point the plot was reportedly called quote offensive against sterling and destruction of its position as world currency the bank of england and the u.s department of the treasury were both informed however the english felt that their existing security infrastructure couldn't sustain the attack therefore they resolved to do little more than releasing a blue emergency one pound note fixed with the security thread running through in 1940 they banned the import of pound banknotes during the war since these countermeasures didn't completely protect the public they did put out psas regarding counterfeit money and stopped producing five pound notes with hitler's seal of approval a counterfeiting unit was created for operation andreas which kicked off in early 1940 under the sika heights steens department it was led by alfred nautrucks who'd been plucked from the shritch duffel day-to-day operations was overseen by now jock's technical director the code-breaking mathematician albert longer operation andreas divided into three parts operation andreas produced rag paper assembled identical printing plates and duplicated the british serial number system to make the project efficient and manageable they focused on the five-pound notes the most widely circulated the germans sent samples of real pound notes for analysis and determined the paper to be used must be handmade later on they discovered that sourcing material from cotton rags created a more polished less suspicious banknote therefore local factories used rags while the operation cleaned and processed them to make paper the method worked although in natural light it resembled british money under ultraviolet they seemed duller they decided to change the chemical balance of the water used in production to that of the united kingdom it solved the problem longer contacted banking experts examining 20 years of currency records to replicate the correct order for the coded alphanumeric serial codes to this day no one knows exactly how the germans discovered the correct sequence historians suspect they used cryptoanalysis techniques german engravers struggled to recreate the image of britannia even nicknaming the icon quote bloody britannia nearly seven months later they perfected her figure which nevertheless still bore incorrectly drawn eyes despite these setbacks the operation progressed albeit not at a slow pace however in late 1940 now jox was relieved of his position over squabbles with superiors longer replaced him until early 1942 the unit was temporarily closed in 18 months of operation they had reportedly forged 3 million british pounds although some historians estimate higher still the money designed during that initial operation sat mostly unused alfred now jokes according to britain's national archives blog writer richard donnelly quote the instructions came from hitler himself who wanted to drop huge quantities of forged bank notes from german aircraft however the high command's bizarre plan never came to pass it was exposed after alfred naughts was arrested in 1944 by then he was already infamous among allied intelligence members for his elemental role in sparking the war five years earlier he had organized and executed the gleivitz incident the operation transcribed anti-german hate speech through polish radio stations the plant paid off its criminal hate speech served as grounds for germany to invade now jox divulged that he was in fact the leader of operation bernhard he explained that his team trained and used 140 jewish prisoners from the saxonhausen camp to forge the banknotes furthermore they had hired a specialized company to provide the rag paper in early 1945 knobjock's group relocated to the mat thousand goosen camp in austria before moving to the regional zip tunnels and lastly to the ebenze concentration camp a breakthrough [Music] in july 1942 the operation was revived with a new goal in mind rex fiora heinrich himmler now wanted to use counterfeit british money to finance german intelligence operations the security services under his command were too underfunded to do so in place of now jocks himmler put ss major bernhard kruger in charge of daily operations he recovered the copper engraving plates and machinery from the original effort unfortunately some of the equipment was damaged kroger sourced labor from concentration camps at sachsenhausen blocks 18 and 19. the area was separated by barbed wire and underwatch from an ss guard unit he would personally recruit prisoners from other camps assembling a team of draftsmen engravers and experts in banking or printing he enlisted the first 26 participants by september 1942 and an additional 80 people in december interestingly kruger would address these prisoners with the formal german pronoun zee something that rarely happened when nazis addressed jews the prisoners received some favor from him including cigarettes newspapers and more food portions they were also provided with a ping pong table and some surprise visits from performers the printing equipment and 12 000 sheets of banknote paper arrived in december and production kicked off by january it would be a year before they match the output pace of operation andreas each sector of the printing process was supervised by a prisoner with former office manager oscar stein overseeing the lot the 140 forced laborers would work two 12-hour shifts in a continuous production line after printing the sheets were dried and the edges were folded to distress further aging was done by having 40 to 50 prisoners pass them around leaving dirt and sweat on them folding and unfolding them wrinkling them and pinching the corners sometimes they would write english names and addresses on the back or write numbers in the front mimicking bank teller markings the germans graded the finished notes using a one to four scale of quality grade one notes were for transactions in neutral countries and to pay spies grade 2 was for operation collaborators grade 3 was planned for dropping over the uk while grade 4 was destroyed between 1943 and 44 this assembly line produced 65 000 notes a month the germans were ecstatic and even awarded 12 prisoners with three jewish ones the war merit medal in may 1944 the prisoners received an order to begin producing u.s dollars the intricate artwork intelio printing process and small silk threading made the request incredibly challenging furthermore the prisoners knew that if they accurately produced these dollars they would probably be executed and germans would take over the project without the supervisors noticing they slowed down their work allegedly only one of their bosses knew krueger himself he had a vested interest in continuing the operation as it kept him away from the front lines still the team managed to produce an accurate reverse of the dollar in late 1944. in january 1945 the prisoners cracked the face 20 samples of hundred dollar bills were made and presented to himmler the printing and engraving work was deemed excellent but the paper quality was subpar the dollar forgery didn't go far black markets the fake money was sent to the ss facility in south terrell schloss labbers they laundered it through an operation led by frederick svend in charge of a black market smuggling in forgery business since the 1930s he struck a deal with the government to keep a third of the money he laundered 25 of that went to his agents and employees he used a network of 50 agents and sub-agents he called salesmen stationed in different countries some were jewish considering no one would suspect them collaborating with nazi germany agents were told the banknotes came from banks and conquered territories the mission was simple to exchange the fake money for real francs or dollars and fund special operations among these funded works was the purchase of black market weapons in yugoslavia to sell back to german sympathizers spies were also paid in fake money most notably the counterfeited banknotes were used to obtain information for the grand salsa raid which liberated the captive italian fascist leader benito mussolini [Music] liberation [Music] all forgeries ended by early march of 1945. the advance of the allied forces meant equipment and teams were sent to the mouth house and ghost and concentration camp in austria they moved again to gradual ziff ordered to continue operations but the prisoners were ordered to destroy all work the few surviving banknotes and remaining equipment were thrown in the tuplets and grendelsea lakes the remaining foragery expert prisoners were moved to ebenz concentration camp in small groups for several days explicit orders to german soldiers stated prisoners had to be executed altogether since they were split into three transportation groups this guideline bought them some if not little time two groups were taken by truck to the camp while the third had to walk a distance of two days travel after their vehicle malfunctioned due to the delay and the advantage of the allies the two groups were released into the concentration camps general population while their ss guards deserted when the third group finally arrived it was also released into the general camp population and its guards fled the next day they were liberated by u.s soldiers as for how much fake money they created estimates range from 132 million pounds to over 300 million the exact number may remain a mystery you

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Keywords: ww2, wwii, world war 2, world war ii, history channel, history, dark docs, darkdocs, documentary, short documentary, germany, britain, luftwaffe, operation bernhard, docu, documentaries, history documentary, documentary history, world war 2 documentary, ww2 documentary, history channel documentary, military history, treasure, documental, military, analysis

Id: n1uPhEFXddM

Length: 12min 25sec (745 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 04 2020