The Counterfeiters (Stefan Markovics, 2007) Germany

The Counterfeiters is the true story of the largest counterfeiting operation in history, set up by the Nazis in 1936. This movie has a great story that is easy to follow and highly entertaining. Written by Stefan Ruzowtzky the movie is based on a true story of Nazi Concentration camps in WWII Germany. The Counterfeiters

The film opens with the character Salomon gambling in a Monte Carlo casino just after the war. It then fades back to the late 30s in Germany where Salomon is more fully introduced as he parties and does shady deals and is generally talked of as a successful forger. In one of the opening scenes it shows Salomon who meets a woman who persuades Salomon to forge an Argentinian passport for her, as she clearly intends to escape Nazi Germany. He takes her back to his house where he skillfully produces the fake passport and ends up in bed with her. The next morning the two are awaken by the police who arrest Salomon for forgery of the dollar bill.

The next scene shows Salomon five years in the present in a Nazi concentration camp. Due to Salomon gift of art, Salomon is given the job of artist making portraits of the soldiers or painting murals of the Nazi soldiers around the concentration camp. Soon Salmon is transferred to another concentration camp. This camp is different though because Salomon and a several other Jewish inmates are told they have an important top secret mission to help the Nazis make fake money. Salomon becomes the leader of the counterfeiter team and orders them to concentrate on quickly producing perfect forgeries of pound notes in various denominations. The film follows the development of the “perfect forgeries.” There are more glimpses of life in the rest of the camp but the forgers are kept in relative luxury.

Overall this movie was great and i enjoyed it, but to me it taught a brief history lesson about a piece of history that I had never heard about. It portrayed the Jewish concentration camps as the horrible places they were, yet showed that the Nazis had the intention of winning the war by flooding the allied countries with a surplus of bogus money to crash their economy making it easier for the Nazis to win the war. Thankfully they failed and we won the war. I’m not sure if the movie has any more showings, but If you enjoy history at all I recommend you view this movie.