Krueger's Men (25 page)

90 Around the same time: Krakowski, 105.

91 Adolf Burger, a Slovak: Ibid., 112–13.

91 Max Groen and his boyhood friend: Author interview, Amsterdam, October 12, 2002; Kors,
De tocht opnieuw
(The Return Journey), portions translated for the author by Toby Molenaar; additional material was supplied by Anne Makkinje, Groen’s former wife, who also accompanied the author to the interview. Groen, always the dandy, recalled that when he received his tattoo at Auschwitz, he tried to suck it out of his skin but succeeded only in blurring the final numeral 1.

92 the classic prison “jungle tom-tom”: Kors, 59

92 “We have beaten England in the military field”: Nachtstern, 50.

93 The original draft of thirty-nine: Krueger fragments 21/III. This barracks conversation was either recorded by hidden microphone or recalled by Krueger after the war. Contrary to the thesis of a recent German-language film,
Die Fälscher,
which implies that the prisoners faced a moral choice between cooperation and sabotage, this fragment is the only evidence that such an option was ever considered—even briefly—and overriden.

94 Those of you who have long and involuntarily: Krueger fragments, 39–40, which includes Krueger’s recollection of the speech and his prisoners’ response.

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95 just over 140 prisoners: An approximation; see Appendix for a full accounting.

95 “even if they had been looking for sword-swallowers”: Nachtstern, 52.

95 in a nearby forest at Friedenthal Castle: Krakowski, 129. Krakowski was sent there occasionally to pick up inks, dyes, and other materials.

96 Krueger’s story was that the prisoners: Krueger, “I Was the World’s Greatest Counterfeiter,” part 1.

96 retouched the Friedenthal plates: Ibid.

96 “counting strips of paper”: Nachtstern, 83 (quoting Cytrin).

96 first and most difficult production problem: Byatt,
Promises to Pay,
153–54.

97 Krueger tested more than a hundred sample batches: Krueger fragments, 82–85. Also the source of his description below of the problems of paper manufacture.

97 The washbasins and toilets: Ibid., 25–35.

98 New arrivals were issued a towel: Groen notes via Anne Makkinje (Zora cigarettes); Krakowski, 112–13 (hot oatmeal); Nachtstern, 42–49; Burger, 119–21.

99 When a fire broke out: Krakowski, 142.

100 Visas, date markings, and rubber stamps: Abraham Jacobson, statement to Dutch authorities, June 6, 1945. Several versions, all in agreement, are gathered in PRO Home Office file 63938/67. Jacobson, a reserve captain in the Dutch army, was arrested as a regional commander of the resistance around Groningen, condemned to death, reprieved, then assigned to Operation Bernhard as chief of the phototype department because he had managed a printing plant in Haarlem. His professional account of conditions in the camp is one of the most reliable. PRO FO 1046/268: SS Forgeries of British Currency and Banknotes 1945.

100 Artur Springer, a fifty-five-year-old Czech businessman: Nachtstern, 74. From prison records it appears that his business either manufactured or processed paper.

100 paper production could be erratic: Sem and Mayer, 13.

101 “It was a nerve-wracking period”: Nachtstern, 52.

101 believed their system to be virtually inscrutable: B/E C 12/103, Note Issue Files, 16 December 1922–29 December 1964. From a memorandum to the chief cashier from the Note Issue Office, 7 February 1938:

The dating of Bank of England notes of £5 and upwards is controlled, not by the Printing Department, but by the Issue Office, who when ordering notes to be printed indicate the dates they are to bear. These dates are settled in accordance with a Dating Scale prepared in advance by the Issue Office. What the Printing Department do is to give every date a particular cypher, the letter of which is determined according to the denomination of the notes to be printed… As not more than 100,000 notes of any denomination are ever printed with the same date, it is obvious that, in the case of notes of £5 in particular, the dates must be constantly changed. The Cypher rota is so constructed that the same cypher is never repeated within a period of 40 years. Thus, as no chief cashier is likely to hold office for that period, the cypher of a note always provides a key to the date and vice versa… The Bank Note Registers all show dates as well as numbers but not cyphers. These latter, however, can always be ascertained by reference to the Cypher Book kept in the Bank Note Office… A reason for the retention of both is that the fact of the cypher and date always corresponding is very little known outside the Bank and consequently is frequently a stumbling-block to forgers.

102 then copy the batch and serial numbers: Many authors have spilled much ink speculating on how Langer, a cryptographer by trade, and then the Reich code-breakers who provided numbers to Krueger cracked the British numbering system. Some go so far as to speculate that Krueger had information from inside the Bank. Even Byatt’s officially blessed
Promises to Pay
concedes the “Dating Scale” (in Bank jargon) was sufficiently well known on the inside for a mole to have transmitted it to Berlin. But Byatt wanly concludes it was “far more likely” that this supposedly redoubtable stumbling block “was readily deducible by sampling notes still in circulation” (p. 150).

102 It was known as Frankfort black: Burke, 22.

102 the Reichsbank recognized this and asked: Byatt, 119.

103 The Britannia medallion itself always had three secret marks: Ibid., 234–37.

103 almost invisible dots they called “flyspecks”: Nachtstern, 141; Krakowski, 136.

103 Tragholz to Reichsbank: Tragholz’s unpublished journal written in 1945, translated by Marcel Bervoets-Tragholz and used by permission of his family.

103 “Look at this, gentlemen”: Nachtstern, 70.

104 about 650,000 notes a month: Report of Capt. Michel, NARA, RG 260, box 451, file 950.31.

104 Six flatbed presses, including four of the latest: Burke, 27–28; Sem and Mayer; Major George J. McNally, Currency Branch, U.S. Seventh Army, Report, 24 January 1946, p. 3 NARA, RG 226, entry 155, boxes 2–3 (hereafter cited as the McNally Report). George J. McNally (1903–1970) joined the U.S. Secret Service in 1935. He was assigned to the counterfeiting division for six years and then to the White House presidential protection detail. After joining the Army in 1942, he was assigned to the White House Signal Corps. In 1945 he was sent to Europe on special assignment to investigate Operation Bernhard with Scotland Yard. Under Presidents Truman and Eisenhower, McNally served as chief of the White House Communications Office and was in Dallas with President Kennedy on November 22, 1963, the day he was assassinated. Forrest V. Sorrels, one of McNally’s associates in the Bernhard investigation, was riding in the motorcade’s lead car when Kennedy was shot. In 1982, McNally wrote a book about his presidential travels but never mentioned a word about his role in unraveling the largest counterfeiting scheme in history. He had already told that story, although with some lacunae and inaccuracies, in an article coauthored with Frederic Sondern, “The Great Nazi Counterfeit Plot,”
Reader’s Digest,
July 1952.

104 The room was sectioned into areas: Krakowski, 123.

104 A double line of prisoners: Nachtstern, 83–87, 141; Krakowski, 135–37; Kors, 68.

105 stabbing her in the eye: Byatt, 149.

105 a nearsighted SS sergeant named Apfelbaum: SFA, E4323 (A) 1988 Appendix A1, Part IV “List of Personalities.”

105 Glanzer began boasting that the counterfeits: Nachtstern, 140–41.

106 had learned all the peculiarities of the bills: Ibid.

106 counted and indexed the notes in a ledger: McNally Report, 8.

107 “good enough to fool anyone but an expert”: Ibid., 6.

107 Felix Tragholz: Krakowski, 123.

107 “You are collectively responsible”: Ibid., 124.

107 “We must pay our agents well”: This revelation is dubious. It hardly seems plausible that Krueger would give away the essence of the plot, even to prisoners he expected would be executed. The text appears in an English translation of the Czech edition of Burger’s book provided to the author, but not in the edition published in Germany after the demise of the Communist secret services. This passage should appear on p. 121 of the German edition, but does not, and Krakowski did not mention espionage in his interview with the author.

107 only the first-class notes: Max Nejman, released prisoner, Brussels, July 9, 1945. McNally Report evidence, NARA, RG 260, box 451, file 950.31.

107–8 shipped directly to German commercial attachés: Max Bober, printer in Block 19, undated statement, McNally Report, and cited by McNally with diagram, 8–8a.

108 “for his personal use”: Former prisoners Georg Kohn and Jack Plapler [Isaak Plapla], statement volunteered to U.S. investigators in Leipzig, 1945, PRO FO 1046/269.

108 Auschwitz was a plum:
Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State
(PBS).

108 The elderly Artur Springer was caught: Nachtstern, 87.

109 Sven Hoffgaard, a
Mischling
Danish bank teller: Ibid., 107.

109 A wrinkled little man named Hermann Gütig: Statement of Schnapper supplementing previous, 5/9/45, NARA, RG 260, box 451, file 950.31; also Nachtstern and others.

109 a young teacher from Poland named Izaak Sukenik: Burger,
Des Teufels Werkstatt
(2001 edition), 181; Krakowski, 163.

110 In the end, Marock and Weber proved more dispensable: Nachtstern, 103–5. This was also reported by Bloom and other sources.

111 performed small acts of sabotage: Max Bober statement, p. 1, included in McNally Report.

111 “We agreed, however, to sabotage the orders”: Jacobson, Home Office file no. 653938, in PRO FO 1046/268.

111 During working hours, the prisoners’ minds: Burger, 179.

111 “This is England”: Nachtstern, 70.

111 The lugubrious Cytrin declared such stunts: Ibid., 68–69.

112 Max Groen, the Dutch newsreel cameraman: Author interview.

112 discussion of classic German authors: Interview with Leonard Lehrhaft in Nowiny Kurier archived in Yad Vashem M49E/512. Courtesy Elaine Felson.

112 Krakowski, reproached for not extinguishing: Author interview; Krakowski, 138.

112 “we will need divine mercy”: Krakowski, 131.

112 asked Springer one day whether he thought: Nachtstern, 94–95, 152.

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114 To inspect the bound ledgers: B/E BNO 3A56/1, 1871–1955.

115 The new fakes were designated Type BB: M5/533, Museum Book and Document Collection Secretary’s Department. War History, Vol. 1: Internal Finance. Unpublished (Microfilm), “Forged Notes: £5 and upwards,” pp. 231ff. Also, Byatt, 146.

115 had sent one of their number rushing out to buy: In the more stately language of the unpublished war history, “A quartz lamp now purchased was of great assistance,” 231.

115 According to the Bank’s own war history: War History, 1, p. x.

115 the Bank’s clerks wrote their litany: B/E Note Office 3A56/1, Memorandum Book, 249–50.

116 The chancellor of the exchequer, Kingsley Wood:
Times
of London, March 17, 1943, 8.

116 the minutes of its senior management committee are completely silent: B/E G 14/27, Committee of Treasury Files. Bank Notes: Production and Issue 10 January 1940–2 July 1969. Notes: Forgeries. Includes papers relating to Nazi Forgeries of BE [Bank of England] Notes. Alas, only
one
such paper, a memo from Peppiatt to the Governor dated June 26, 1945, is entered in the Committee’s files as C/T/27/6/45, upon which a handwritten notation remarks: “Previous Minute 10/1/40.” The Committee of Treasury is composed of the governor, his deputy, and senior department directors.

116 recorded meticulously by Oskar Stein in his secret diary: “Interview with Oskar Stein alias Skala [his Czech name], head bookkeeper, at his home in Tabor, Czechoslovakia, Sept. 16, 1945,” McNally Report, 16a.

116 in today’s money at least $6 billion: I am multiplying conservatively by a factor of only 10, basing my calculation on the long-term increase in the price of gold, roughly tenfold in recent years but rising (during the war years it was fixed at $35 an ounce). Of course, many asset values, from beachfront property to Harvard degrees to Old Master paintings, have increased far more than that, and so have many military costs. The economist Fred Hirsch called these items of intrinsically limited supply “positional goods.” The rise in their prices is offset by the decline in inflation-adjusted prices of many manufactured goods in everyday use. And some mass consumer goods of great utility, such as tape recorders or personal computers, would have been priceless then or simply unavailable.

116 enough to build a small flotilla of submarines: In the command economy of Nazi Germany, with the exchange rate of the reichsmark fixed artificially high, there is no way to estimate the real price of anything, especially when production inputs included slave labor and raw materials that had been stolen or even paid for in counterfeit pounds. Not even the economists of the postwar U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (
German Submarine Industry Report,
Washington, D.C., Munitions Division, 1947) published cost estimates of what had been destroyed. So to give a sense of the enormity of only the top-grade Bernhard counterfeits in tradable currencies, I have used the wartime estimates of the U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Ships, or about $3 million per submarine. At $40 million on the open market, if there were such a thing for submarines in wartime, that would mean about a dozen U-boats. Michael Thomas Poirier, Commander, United States Navy: Chief of Naval Operations: Submarine Warfare Division,
Results of the German and American Submarine Campaigns of World War II,
October 20, 1999, footnote 124, citing the $3 million estimate of the Navy’s Bureau of Ships.
Ships Data: U.S. Naval Vessels
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1945), vol. 1, 88.