Bank Note Banknote

£50 Nazi Bernhard Banknote Bank of England Catterns 1930 Unc RARE Portals Notch

£50 Nazi Bernhard Banknote Bank of England Catterns 1930 Unc RARE Portals Notch
£50 Nazi Bernhard Banknote Bank of England Catterns 1930 Unc RARE Portals Notch
£50 Nazi Bernhard Banknote Bank of England Catterns 1930 Unc RARE Portals Notch

£50 Nazi Bernhard Banknote Bank of England Catterns 1930 Unc RARE Portals Notch

Churchill called these notes Hitlers Paper Weapon. Operation Informational (1942 - 1945). The real plan was directed by, and named after, SS Major (Sturmbannführer) Bernhard Information Al, who set up a team of 142 counterfeiters from among inmates at Sachsenhausen and Auschwitz. The notes are considered the most perfect counterfeits ever produced, being extremely difficult although not impossible to distinguish from the real thing. Although the initial plan was to destabilise the British economy by dropping the notes from aircraft, in practice this plan was not put into effect.

The Luftwaffe did not have enough planes to deliver the forgeries. The Bank of England first learned of a plot from a spy as early as 1939. It first detected the existence of the notes in 1943, and declared them the most dangerous ever seen. Clerks first recorded the counterfeits from a British bank in Tangiers.

They were recorded, like all notes, in handwritten ledgers still in the Bank's archives (every banknote issued by the Bank of England as late as the 1940s was recorded in large leather-bound ledgers, as the notes were a liability of the bank), it was noted that one of the notes had already been recorded as having been paid off. After the war, Major Krüger was detained by the British for two years, then turned over to the French for a year. He said they asked him to forge documents but that he refused. He was released in 1948 without any charges being pressed. In the 1950s, he went before a De-Nazification Court, where statements were produced from the forger-inmates whose lives he had been responsible for saving.

He later worked for the company which had produced the special paper for the Operation Bernhard forgeries. This item is in the category "Coins\Banknotes\British\English\Pre-1952".

The seller is "centralbanknotes" and is located in this country: GB. This item can be shipped to United Kingdom.
  • Denomination: £50
  • Sub-Type: Catterns
  • Type: Notes
  • Year of Issue: 1930
  • Era: Pre-1952
  • Country: Germany
  • Region: Europe
  • Features: Uncirculated, Operation Bernhard Nazi Forgery

£50 Nazi Bernhard Banknote Bank of England Catterns 1930 Unc RARE Portals Notch