The Counterfeiters

Operation Bernhard, a large scale counterfeiting scheme implemented by the Nazis in 1942, saw a team of 142 Jewish prisoners working from their concentration camp in Sachsenhausen to forge British banknotes, and later American dollars. Clandestine German agents would subsequently insert these notes into the respective economies to corrupt them. Spearheaded by incarcerated specialists in typography and all-out fraud, the mission was largely successful in its offensive against Britain, producing nearly £135 million and causing the currency to devalue by about 75%.

Adolf Burger, a Slovakian Jew who spent time in Auschwitz before being selected for his expertise in collotype to join the relative paradise of the “golden cage” in Sachsenhausen, wrote the book from which Stefan Ruzowitzky’s film was adapted. Portrayed in the film as a young communist, his adamant conviction to sabotage their oppressors’ operation from the inside clashes with another’s, Russian counterfeit expert Salomon Sorowitsch, whose actions are singularly driven by a will for self-preservation. “Adapt or die” is the overarching issue pronounced by the film which motivates both Sorowitsch and his captor, a member of the German elite who unleashes his feral spirit with a degree of hesitation, recognising the need to acclimatise to the ideals of the Third Reich despite his natural inclinations. Burger is presented as their foil, one who charges himself with the duty to hinder the Nazi war effort even at the expense of his life and, more pertinently, the lives of his fellow inmates.

A raw, grainy film intimately follows the three characters, impetuously navigating through a dank labyrinth of interlinked moral dilemmas. Extreme close-up shots bid to shed light on the unstated calculations that go through the characters' minds, but we can’t possibly fathom what logical processes can determine what is right in a world that is wrong. The Counterfeiters does not seek to apologise for Germany’s unpalatable past. But it does account for it in all its crudeness, taking care to present its victims as real humans driven by unchecked instinct. The ethical divide is rarely this blurred in a film touching on a sensitive historical subject. The Counterfeiters is a thrilling story, intelligently told, adding night and fog to the unassuming style of The Lives of Others.