Operation Bernhard

The Nazi scheme to counterfeit British banknotes with concentration camp labor

Overview

Operation Bernhard, named after SS officer Bernhard Kruger, put skilled prisoners to work in a secret workshop at Sachsenhausen concentration camp producing forged Bank of England notes. The forgeries were of high quality and were used to pay agents and buy materials, including payments to the spy known as Cicero in Turkey. An early plan to wreck the British economy by dropping notes from aircraft was never carried out. As the war ended the workshop was moved to Austria, crates of notes were dumped into Lake Toplitz, and the prisoners were liberated at the Ebensee camp in May 1945.