B241 PEPPIATT 1938 WHITE £5 OPERATION BERNHARD NOTE * EF * B/271

5 Pounds

Peppiatt

Operation Bernhard Forgery

London

Date: 7 sEPT 1938 Serial No: B/271 57145

1934 to 1938 - A & B - Black on white, Uniface

Operation Bernhard Banknotes - or Bernhards as they are commonly reffered to were produced by approximately 150 'volunteers', who were, in fact, Polish and Jewish prisoners in Block 19 of  Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The Nazis produced vast quantities of counterfeit English Banknotes,  overseen by Staatssckreiner (Chief of Police of  the General Government) Friederich Walter Barnhard Krueger.  The Nazis wanted to undermine the British Economy by air dropping the banknotes over Britain, but, they abandoned  this idea in favour of the more subtle approach of buying goods and materials in neutral countries, also by paying their spies and agents - the most notable spy being 'Cicero'.  In 1945 the Nazis tried to hide the evidence of Operation Bernhard in the Enns River, the Traun River and Lake Toplitzsee, the latter is from where many of the banknotes in today's collections were recovered.

Dugglebys 7th: B241 - Banknote Yearbook: BE91 - Grade: Extremely Fine