__NOTOC__ Bernhard Krüger (; 26 November 1904 – 3 January 1989) was a member of the NSDAP, SS ''

Sturmbannführer __NOTOC__ ''Sturmbannführer'' (; ) was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank equivalent to Major (rank), major that was used in several Nazi organizations, such as the Sturmabteilung, SA, Schutzstaffel, SS, and the National Socialist Flyers Corps, NSFK ...

'' (Major) during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, and leader of the Department VI F 4a, part of the SD-foreign branch in the

Reich Security Main Office The Reich Security Main Office ( , RSHA) was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as ''Chef der Deutschen Polizei'' (Chief of German Police) and , the head of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS). The organization's stat ...

(RSHA). This office of the Nazi Party Security Service (SD) was responsible for, among other things, falsifying

passport A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that certifies a person's identity and nationality for international travel. A passport allows its bearer to enter and temporarily reside in a foreign country, access local aid ...

s and documents. Within the setting of

Operation Bernhard Operation Bernhard was an exercise by Nazi Germany to forge British Banknotes of the pound sterling, bank notes. The initial plan was to drop the notes over Britain to bring about a economic collapse, collapse of the Economy of the United Kingdom ...

, the SD forged pound notes in great numbers, funding Nazi Germany with £600 million in high-quality counterfeit currency (worth approx. $6 billion 2009). This

counterfeiting A counterfeit is a fake or unauthorized replica of a genuine product, such as money, documents, designer items, or other valuable goods. Counterfeiting generally involves creating an imitation of a genuine item that closely resembles the original ...

operation was named after Krüger, who led the operation from a segregated factory built at

Sachsenhausen concentration camp Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners t ...

, manned by 142 Jewish inmates. The pound counterfeiting operation ended in 1944. However Krüger succeeded in establishing a new operation to forge American dollar notes. In May 1945 his team of prisoners were transferred to Ebensee concentration camp in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

where they were liberated. One of the forgers,

Adolf Burger Adolf Burger (12 August 1917 – 6 December 2016) was a Slovak Jewish typographer, memoir writer, and Holocaust survivor involved in Operation Bernhard. The film ''The Counterfeiters'', based largely on his memoirs, won the 2007 Academy Award fo ...

survived the war and stated that "Major Krüger was in no way like

Oskar Schindler Oskar Schindler (; 28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974) was a German industrialist, humanitarian, and member of the Nazi Party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and amm ...

. He was a murderer just like everyone else, six weeks before the war ended he had six people shot just because they were sick. He couldn't send them to hospital in case they said something about the operation, so he killed them." After the war, Major Krüger was detained by the British for two years, then turned over to the French for a year forging documents for them. He was released in 1948 without any charges being pressed, and returned to Germany. In the 1950s, he went before a

denazification Denazification () was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War. It was carried out by removing those who had been Nazi Par ...

court, where inmates under his charge at Sachsenhausen provided statements that resulted in his acquittal. He eventually worked for the company that had produced the special paper for the Operation Bernhard forgeries. He died in 1989.

In popular culture

German actor

Devid Striesow Devid Striesow (born 1 October 1973 in Bergen auf Rügen, East Germany) is a German actor. After his school education, he moved to Berlin to start an apprenticeship as a goldsmith but the goldsmith's business went bankrupt before Striesow cou ...

portrays the character

Herzog in the movie '' Die Fälscher'' ("The Counterfeiters", 2007). Sturmbannführer Herzog is based on the real Bernhard Krüger.

References

Notes Further reading * Bloom, Murray Teigh (1983) ''The Brotherhood of Money''. Port Clinton, Ohio: BNR Press.

External links

Bernhard Krüger's photo
Axis History Forum. {{DEFAULTSORT:Krueger, Bernhard 1904 births 1989 deaths SS-Sturmbannführer German counterfeiters Reich Security Main Office personnel