| November 26 |  |
Editor says, what if Adolf Hitler had committed more resources to the Kriegsmarine? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the July 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1904, on this day the master Nazi Counterfeiter Bernhard Krüger was born in Slovakia's High Tatra mountains.
Flugzeugträger Part 8:
Operation BernhardAs a Schutzstaffel Sturmbannf"hrer (SS Major) set up a team of counterfeiters to develop the appropriate rag-based paper with the correct watermarks for pounds sterling and later, US dollars. Although the task of breaking the code to generate valid serial numbers was extremely difficult, the printing press of "Operation Bernhard" produced notes that were almost impossible to distinguish from the real currency (in the 1940s, the Bank of England still maintained leather-bound volumes recording all serial numbers).
The original aim was to flood enemy countries with counterfeit currency that would create inflation and wreck their economies. However by the late nineteen thirties, the Nazis were more concerned with the German economy being wrecked by the war-time build-up. And so the much needed hard currencies were used to buy raw materials for Plan Z the re-equipment and expansion of the Nazi German Navy (Kriegsmarine) ordered by Adolf Hitler on January 27, 19371. This was partly achieved by a laundering operation in which gold was sold by Swiss banks, obviating the need for the Wehrmacht to launch Operation Tannenbaum, the high risk invasion of Switzerland. Because at this stage, the Nazis were heavily relying upon the theft of currency reserves, gold and diamonds from occupied countries in order to maintain liquidity. Fortunately, SS Major Bernhard had found a way to raid Switzerland without the huge costs of mountain warfare.
This post shares some commonality with the sister articles in the Flugzeugträger thread.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Flugzeugtrager Source: Wikipedia Labels: Operation Bernhard, Kriegsmarine, German Navy, Bernhard Kruger, Second World War. Editor says, in out timeline by the time Sachsenhausen was evacuated in April 1945 the printing press had produced 8,965,080 banknotes with a total value of £134,610,810. Please note that in authoring this post we have repurposed a considerable amount of content from Wikipedia.
1)In this timeline, brought forward by two years to 1937 to allow for lead times. Big ships need 3-4 years to build and have ready for sea duty. It can be done faster [USN WW2] but that takes an economy less messed up than Nazi germany before speer's mid-war rationalizations
~ Scary...
~ WW2 saw a bunch of off-the-wall things like this that sort of almost worked like the Japanese nuke program that seem to have produced a fizzle/small bomb explosion a few days before the war ended.
~ This might have worked. Another way might have been to exchange them in banks in countries like Turkey and the US (before the declaration of war on the US).
~ No way to get them to the US. A lot were passed in Turkey. The spy that sold Germany the Overlord plans was paid in counterfeit and caught trying to pass the bills. Here's the quote from wiki: German spy Elyesa Bazna (codename "Cicero") was paid with counterfeit notes, and unsuccessfully sued the German government after the war for outstanding pay.
~ I don't know where Scott Palter is getting his info re Japan's nuclear program, but my understanding is that the Japanese, although they hafd some top-flight physicists, were nowhere near producing even a "fizzle" bomb at the time of the war's end. They simply didn't have the resources to spare. It's worth recalling that at its height the Manhattan Project was consuming a full ten percent of the electrical power output of the United States. This claim strikes me as most likely originating with apologists for Hiroshima who want people to believe the A-bombing was OK because Japan was getting ready to do it to us.
~ This list seems to remove url's when I post them but here goes. Wikipedia. Story is out there. A small test bomb and / or fizzle in what is now North Korea just before the surrender. Now maybe it is real and maybe it isn't. Also there is a long road from a Trinity type test to a deliverable weapon. However it has been out there for years and the rumors were out there for decades before.
~ And it removed the url again. Go to wikipedia and then Japanese nuclear weapons program and then the subsection saying new evidence of Japanese success.
~ What if the currency-sabotage system had been able to infiltrate the Lend-Lease program, devastating US-UK trade and driving a major economic wedge between them?
~ How does currency sabotage mess up Lend Lease in a command economy?
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