Operation Bernhard was an exercise by Nazi Germany to forge British bank notes. The initial plan was to drop the notes over Britain to bring about a collapse of the British economy during the Second World War. The first phase was run from early 1940 by the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) under the title Unternehmen Andreas. The unit successfully duplicated the rag paper used by the British, produced near-identical engraving blocks and deduced the algorithm used to create the alpha-numeric serial code on each note. The unit closed in early 1942 after its head, Alfred Naujocks, fell out of favour with his superior officer, Reinhard Heydrich.
A £5 note (White fiver) forged by Sachsenhausen concentration camp prisoners
Vignette of Britannia that appeared in the top left of the British notes
Alfred Naujocks, who oversaw Operation Andreas
SS Major Bernhard Krüger, shown after his capture in 1946
Banknotes of the pound sterling
The pound sterling is the official currency of the United Kingdom, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, British Antarctic Territory, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, and Tristan da Cunha.
An example of a provincial English banknote: a £1 note issued in 1814 by the Gloucester Old Bank
The Debden Security Printing Ltd printing facility, owned by De La Rue, which prints Bank of England banknotes.
Sir Winston Churchill
J. M. W. Turner
