The economic base determines the superstructure
If you destroy a country's buildings, you can destroy a country's economy first. Whether it is Napoleon's continental policy that suppressed the development of the British maritime industry, the Indian company's exploitation of colonial economic benefits, or the German Bernard action that suppressed the British economy, etc., all reflect the importance of the economy to a country
war
War consumes several times more money than the value of national production. Coupled with the loss of labor, the bombing of weapons of war and the restrictions on exports and imports between countries will increase a country's fiscal deficit and economic burden. For this reason, the economy often becomes the key to winning wars
To this end, Germany in World War II, in the face of military expenditure, arms manufacturing and food demand pressure, they relied on the predatory economic policy in the occupying power, requisitioned cheap labor and trade with the allies and puppet countries in the occupied areas to resist, impacted the economic resistance of Britain and the United States, and even launched the British Air War and The Bernard Operation to counter-pressure the British economy
The first was the launch of Operation Bernard. Pioneered the largest scale of state-led, government-invested, elites from all walks of life including criminals, bankers, and cryptographers in human history to participate in the largest counterfeiting campaign against Britain
The design of pre-war British banknotes was dominated by the motif of the goddess Britannia. The exquisite art of the watermark process and the cross-shaped linen paper make it unique with the help of a multi-layered superposition process, and even the digital coding system is well thought out. In short, almost no one in Britain could imitate paper money, but by 1945, 1/3 of the paper money in circulation was counterfeit, most of which was produced by Bernard's actions
To this end, in order to strengthen the confidence of the British public in the pound, The Secretary of the Treasury, John Anderson, has held several meetings to discuss the response to counterfeit banknotes and block the news, ordered the media not to follow up on the progress of the investigation, and refused to disclose the potential threat of the spread of counterfeit money to the British United Kingdom. Among them, the recovery of all the 10 pound banknotes in circulation on the market was also met with resistance from all sides and was not implemented. In early 1946, all the proposals were revived, and this time a new note was issued, and the old coin marked with counterfeit money was replaced by a new coin with a security mark, and each new note had a metal bar on it, which is still preserved in today's banknotes.
pound sterling
However, the UK is not content to be a fish. When high-fidelity counterfeit banknotes were discovered in several banks in Europe and West Africa, the British Intelligence Service sent spies: Robert Steven, whose mission was to investigate whether the German Nazis were behind it. Unfortunately, Robert Steven was arrested in Berlin two weeks later, and although he managed to escape back to England, the trip found nothing. So during the war, Britain knew nothing about the true source of counterfeit money and the scale of the Germans' counterfeiting operations, and was ignorant of nazi domestic policy surrounding this conspiracy.
Sachsenhausen
In the spring of 1940, SS Alfred Naujoux inspected the printing house Sachsenhausen in Berlin. He took a closer look at a counterfeit £5 coin under the microscope and was delighted to find that it was a highly realistic product. It led him to believe that hundreds of counterfeit coins could be created to trigger inflation in Britain, dealing a fatal blow to britain's economy, depriving the pound of value and derailing people's daily lives. This idea was supported by Hitler, but opposed the attachment of counterfeit dollars to documents.
To this end, with the support of the Fuehrer, Heydrich issued a highly confidential document saying: "This is not counterfeiting and counterfeiting in the ordinary sense, but the manufacture of real products, counterfeit money must be a perfect reproduction of the original, even experienced bank cashiers can not see the difference." To this end, the Nazis gathered Germany's best engraving experts, papermaking technologists and mathematicians to perfectly reproduce and even imitate the pound's numbering rules on cloth, water, printing machines and creases. After months of painstaking experimentation, a bundle of counterfeit £90,000 bills was taken to a Swiss bank for francs, and after careful examination, the pounds were sent to London for inspection. Experts confirm that the pound sterlings of these labels are indeed in circulation and allow for exchange
Swiss banks
However, under the struggle for power, all achievements have been eclipsed. Soon Naujoux was defeated in a political struggle with Heydrich and sent to the front. Until the appearance of another man named Bernhard Kruger, the counterfeiting work was continued and gradually perfected. In just two and a half years, more than 8 million counterfeit banknotes were produced, and the total denomination value added up to more than £134 million.
The counterfeit banknotes produced by the Bernhard operation became one of the important means of rescuing Mussolini and Italian Foreign Minister Ciano in exchange for food, and in exchange for currency at the embassy in Germany
Liberation of Berlin
However, the success of Operation Bernhard did not change the fate of Germany's defeat. Both the Allied Operation Overlord and the defeat in the Soviet-German War accelerated the liberation of Berlin. Counterfeit banknotes from Operation Bernhard even became tools for the arrest of former Nazi agents
Money laundering
The implementation of Operation Bernhard is not the first in the world. As early as the Prussia Frederick the Great had made the currency circulating in his rival Poland during the Seven Years' War, and Napoleon had also signed orders to make Austrian and Russian counterfeit money, etc., all of which reflected the importance of the economy to the country. However, it makes the country attach importance to the identification and identification of counterfeit banknotes, and plays a major role in the study of anti-counterfeiting marks of currencies.