chapter to the achievements of his cadre of technicians, but Operation Bernhard is dismissed in less than two pages. Perhaps he feared a postwar demand for restitution; but more likely, he was still bitter about the restraints placed on his schemes by his masters. Toward the end, he wrote vindictively in his memoirs, many of the counterfeits were “wasted as a result of unrealistic fantasies and brain waves of the [Nazi] leaders.”
Secrecy was essential to the revived counterfeiting operation lest the British discover its significance (they were aware of the plan, but not the size of it). Equally important, Himmler and Schellenberg had to hide any expansion of the SS espionage service, first from the German economic ministries but above all from the Abwehr. Military intelligence already had its own expert forgery staff of twenty engravers and graphics specialists. Schellenberg had to develop his own shop if the forgers and their product were to remain under his control and not be dumped on the British Isles. By 1942 it would have been treason, or at the very least a grave affront to Goering, for anyone to say that the Reichsmarschall could not mass enough planes to send paper banknotes fluttering down over England, and no one was willing to take that chance. But it was the truth and Schellenberg knew it: Goering’s Luftwaffe was not even able to resupply German troops fighting for their lives at Stalingrad during the winter of 1942–43, when they were surrounded and lost the decisive battle of the war. Schellenberg could therefore safely insist that the pound notes were being printed to scatter over England — the perfect cover for the scheme to finance his own nascent foreign intelligence service.
Keeping secrets was easy in wartime Germany. Basic Order No. 1 of January 11, 1940, stipulated that “No one, no office, no officer, may learn of something to be kept secret if he does not have to have knowledge of it for official reasons.” When Krueger’s money factory at Sachsenhausen was up and running, he was supposed to deliver the best notes in person to Schellenberg’s office in Berlin. It is doubtful he was told what Schellenberg intended to do with the money, but that was not his concern. His task, no more and no less, was to get presses rolling as soon as possible. To accomplish this he had to contact high-quality German manufacturers of paper and ink while recruiting and training a workforce of experienced prisoners.
The following directive soon went out from Germany’s main concentration camp administration, signed by Lieutenant Colonel Hermann Dörner. He was the chief of the RSHA technical division, successor to the erratic and often uncontrollable Alfred Naujocks, and he operated in a very different style indeed. Dörner, age fifty-three, was of medium height, with a strong neck and roundish face topped by thinning blond hair, and conducted himself in a stately manner befitting his rank.
Business Administration Main HQ
Oranienburg, 20 July 1942
Group D-Concentration Camp
D II/1 Ma. Hag.
Subject: Report on Jewish prisoners
To: commanders of KL Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, and Sachsenhausen
You must inform me immediately about all Jewish prisoners who are from the graphic arts. Specialists in paper, or any other skilled worker (e.g., hairdresser).
These Jewish prisoners may be of foreign nationality, but they must have a knowledge of German. Send me names and nationality by 3 August 1942.
Chief of Office D2
Dörner
by order SS Obersturmfuehrer
To ensure a wide choice, two more appeals were circulated, one on Dörner’s deadline day of August 3, and the next on August 11. The Nazis could not have imagined who and what they would find among the Jews.
Chapter 6
I NGATHERING OF THE E XILES
A ufstehen!”
In the darkest hour before the dawn, that daily wake-up call ended the restless sleep of every prisoner in every freezing, louse-infested hut across the constellation of Nazi concentration camps
Secrecy was essential to the revived counterfeiting operation lest the British discover its significance (they were aware of the plan, but not the size of it). Equally important, Himmler and Schellenberg had to hide any expansion of the SS espionage service, first from the German economic ministries but above all from the Abwehr. Military intelligence already had its own expert forgery staff of twenty engravers and graphics specialists. Schellenberg had to develop his own shop if the forgers and their product were to remain under his control and not be dumped on the British Isles. By 1942 it would have been treason, or at the very least a grave affront to Goering, for anyone to say that the Reichsmarschall could not mass enough planes to send paper banknotes fluttering down over England, and no one was willing to take that chance. But it was the truth and Schellenberg knew it: Goering’s Luftwaffe was not even able to resupply German troops fighting for their lives at Stalingrad during the winter of 1942–43, when they were surrounded and lost the decisive battle of the war. Schellenberg could therefore safely insist that the pound notes were being printed to scatter over England — the perfect cover for the scheme to finance his own nascent foreign intelligence service.
Keeping secrets was easy in wartime Germany. Basic Order No. 1 of January 11, 1940, stipulated that “No one, no office, no officer, may learn of something to be kept secret if he does not have to have knowledge of it for official reasons.” When Krueger’s money factory at Sachsenhausen was up and running, he was supposed to deliver the best notes in person to Schellenberg’s office in Berlin. It is doubtful he was told what Schellenberg intended to do with the money, but that was not his concern. His task, no more and no less, was to get presses rolling as soon as possible. To accomplish this he had to contact high-quality German manufacturers of paper and ink while recruiting and training a workforce of experienced prisoners.
The following directive soon went out from Germany’s main concentration camp administration, signed by Lieutenant Colonel Hermann Dörner. He was the chief of the RSHA technical division, successor to the erratic and often uncontrollable Alfred Naujocks, and he operated in a very different style indeed. Dörner, age fifty-three, was of medium height, with a strong neck and roundish face topped by thinning blond hair, and conducted himself in a stately manner befitting his rank.
Business Administration Main HQ
Oranienburg, 20 July 1942
Group D-Concentration Camp
D II/1 Ma. Hag.
Subject: Report on Jewish prisoners
To: commanders of KL Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, and Sachsenhausen
You must inform me immediately about all Jewish prisoners who are from the graphic arts. Specialists in paper, or any other skilled worker (e.g., hairdresser).
These Jewish prisoners may be of foreign nationality, but they must have a knowledge of German. Send me names and nationality by 3 August 1942.
Chief of Office D2
Dörner
by order SS Obersturmfuehrer
To ensure a wide choice, two more appeals were circulated, one on Dörner’s deadline day of August 3, and the next on August 11. The Nazis could not have imagined who and what they would find among the Jews.
Chapter 6
I NGATHERING OF THE E XILES
A ufstehen!”
In the darkest hour before the dawn, that daily wake-up call ended the restless sleep of every prisoner in every freezing, louse-infested hut across the constellation of Nazi concentration camps
Similar Books
