The E-Sylum:  Volume 11, Number 16, April 20, 2008, Article 19

MOVIE REVIEW NOTES: THE COUNTERFEITERS

Joe Boling writes: "On the movie "The Counterfeiters",
Steve Feller, Fred Schwan, Danny Spungen and his wife, and
I went to see it one night during CPMX. I found the numismatic
content to be fairly sparse and subject to errors. It's really
a morality play about the inmates and their jailers."

Warner Talso writes: Let me pick a nit with Larry Gaye's review
of the movie  'The Counterfeiters'.  The review states the
purpose of Operation Bernhard was to destabilize the British
Pound.  This was the original idea, but was quickly dropped.
There is no way the Nazis could have produced enough notes to
accomplish this purpose. And many in the Nazi government
objected to the idea.   Rather, the purpose became to create
hard currency to support the German war effort.  Finished
notes were graded and sorted into three Classes (wahl).
Class I, and highest quality notes were used to pay spies in
neutral nations.  Class II, and next highest quality notes,
were used to pay SS Units, partisans, and collaborators. Class
III notes were saved for a possible future plan to drop over
England.  Class IV were rejects.

"As a sidelight, Cicero (Elyesa Bazna), a famous and valuable
Nazi spy in the British embassy in Ankara, Turkey was paid
in Operation Bernhard notes.  Cicero was a valet to the
British ambassador.  He photographed top Secret documents and
sold them to the Nazis. He was reportedly the highest paid
spy of the war.   Cicero saved his money and after the war
tried to set up a business with the notes. The forgeries were
discovered and confiscated.  Cicero died destitute."

 MOVIE REVIEW BY LARRY GAYE: THE COUNTERFEITERS
 esylum_v11n15a23.html

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization 
promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor 
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum