2016-12-23 Fri

On 6th December, Adolf Burger, one of the two survivors of Operation Bernhard, the counterfeiting workshop at the Nazi concentration camp in Sachsenhausen breathed his last.

The Operation Bernhard notes are one of the best counterfeits with engraved plates, rag paper, correct watermarks and valid serial numbers. Experts state that these fakes can be identified based on serial number ranges and the small anomaly where “Bank of England’ can be seen in the watermark. There is a triangle at the base of the first ‘N’ in England. On the fake notes, there is a line that starts at the centre of the base of the triangle while on the real notes have lines that are off-centre.

Burger wrote a book, Number 64401 Speaks which was made into a movie, The Counterfeiters that won the Oscar in 2008 for best foreign language film.

Burger had everything in the counterfeiting workshop like a bed, white pillows, bread but was not supposed to get out. Americans came faster and SS ran away. He never thought he would escape alive from the secret printing shop.

95-year-old Hans Walter is the last survivor of Operation Bernhard who lives in Ohio.