(Richard Pohle/The Times)
Adolf Burger holds up one of the thousands of wartime British five pound notes that he was forced to forge by the Germans
The man who forged the equivalent of £3 billion in a Nazi plot to bring down the British economy during the Second World War was invited to the Bank of England this week to inspect one of his counterfeit banknotes.
Adolf Burger, 91, a Slovakian Jew who was coerced into producing near-perfect forgeries at a concentration camp, held the note up to the light and grunted in acknowledgement. “Yes,” he said in Czech. “This is one of mine.”
Mr Burger, the first forger knowingly invited to the bank, told The Times that he and his fellow prisoners had marked all the fake notes in a way that they hoped would be obvious to the Bank of England but would escape the attention of the Nazis.
The large size of British banknotes meant that it was customary to fold them and pin them together, creating small holes in the notes. “To make our notes look worn there were specialists in the camp who were making pinholes. But we knew that Englishmen would never put a pinhole through Britannia, so there was a prisoner who always put a pinhole through Britannia. We hoped to send a message out of the camp so people would know how to detect a forged note but we failed to get the message out.”
The threat posed by the forgeries was so great that all notes except the £5 note were withdrawn in 1943 to “provide an additional handicap for those who may contemplate breaches of exchange, control and other regulations . . .” The £5 note was redesigned in 1945 to remove its “deckle” or feathered edges.
Mr Burger helped to create £135 million in fake £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes, the equivalent of £3 billion today. German agents laundered them throughout Europe and there were plans to destabilise the pound by dropping bundles of notes over Britain.
The typographer, whose wife Gisela was sent to the gas chamber at Birkenau, survived Auschwitz and Birkenau before he was transferred to Sachsenhausen for the counterfeiting. He received special treatment but knew that he was living on borrowed time. “When I was provided with bed linen and food, I felt like I was a dead person on holiday because we were not supposed to survive. When they took me to the special blocks I thought, ‘I’m dead for sure’, because they would never let me survive [with knowledge] of such an operation.”
Mr Burger pointed to a picture of a mineshaft in his memoir, The Devil’s Workshop, which has recently been published in English by Frontline. “At the end of the war this is the place we were supposed to die.” The Germans had rigged a mine with explosives to kill the forgers but abandoned the plan as American forces closed in.
The forgers’ story was adapted for the big screen as The Counterfeiters, which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film last year. The film accurately portrayed how one of the counterfeiters, Abraham Jacobson, sabotaged the project to print fake dollars until the last possible moment.
Bernhard Kruger, the SS officer in charge of the operation, suspected foul play and gave an ultimatum: produce a viable dollar within four weeks or be shot. The prisoners delayed for another two weeks before producing 200 perfect dollar bills. “Kruger came immediately from Berlin with two bank clerks and 50 genuine dollar bills. They put all the notes on a large desk and mixed the fakes and the real ones together. He told the bank clerks to pick out the 50 genuine ones.
“After about an hour they came up with 50 notes and gave them to Kruger. He gave them to Jacobson and said, ‘Tell me if there are any of your banknotes in there’.” Jacobson, who had marked the back of the fakes, found that a third of the approved bills were his forgeries. But the sabotage was successful. The Russian advance meant the equipment had to be moved and no more bills were made.
Mr Burger, one of two surviving forgers, said he would be able to forge modern banknotes despite technical advances. However, he told Andrew Bailey, the Bank of England’s Chief Cashier, not to worry. “I promised him that I would not try again,” he said.
FAMOUS FORGERS
Frank Abagnale Between 1964 and 1969, he cashed $2.5 million in bad cheques, assumed eight identities and passed himself off as a paediatrician, a lawyer and a pilot for Pan Am. He was played by Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me if You Can in 2002
Anatasios Arnaouti Imprisoned in 2005 for leading one of Britain’s biggest counterfeiting operations. His factory could produce £276,000 a day in fake currency and is estimated to have created £10 million in fake notes
Abel Buell Born in 1742 in Connecticut, he was notorious for attempting to convert £5 notes into higher denominations. He was punished by having “F” for forger branded on his head
Victor Lustig Remembered for twice selling the Eiffel Tower despite not owning it, Count Lustig was caught in 1935 with a key to a locker of $51,000 in fake currency
William Chaloner Successful British counterfeiter until 1699, when Sir Isaac Newton and the Royal Mint unmasked him. He was hanged, drawn and quartered
Stephen Jory Leader of the so-called Lavender Hill Mob. He admitted at his trial in 1998 that he had produced £50 million of fake £20 notes, but the figure may be much higher
Catherine Murphy Executed by burning in 1789 for clipping off tiny pieces from gold coins in order to forge new ones
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