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2012
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London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Stefan Ruzowitzky.
Cast: Karl Markovics, August Diehl, Devid Striesow
Description: True story of the most daring counterfeiting scam in history, initiated by the Nazis during World War II. The Germans hatch a plan to flood Allied countries with forged banknotes, thereby weakening their economies. Master forger Salomon Sorowitsch oversees the operation during his internment at a concentration camp, presided over by Superintendent Friedrich Herzog. However, Salomon's conscience begins to get the better of him.
Country: GER/AUS. 2006. 98mins
Life or death bet: Karl Markovics is excellent as Saloman Sorowitsch, the real-life Jewish "king of the counterfeiters"
The Counterfeiters is a story that had to be told, and German director Stefan Ruzowitzky tells it plainly but well. It's the substantially true tale of Saloman Sorowitsch, the counterfeiter arrested by the Germans as a career criminal and a Jew, incarcerated in the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen and then, as the war drew to a close, persuaded, on pain of certain death, to oversee a huge scam to aid the Nazi war effort and ruin the finances of the Allies.
The Nazis planned to flood the market with more than £130 million in fake sterling and a similar amount in dollars. Had the plan been conceived earlier, the war might have taken a different turn. But it was too late, and much of the counterfeit cash was flung into Lake Toplitz in Austria and has never been found.
Operation Bernhard was undertaken by Sorowitsch, professional printers, expert graphic artists and even bank officials brought in from other camps and kept in two barracks, separated from the rest of the prisoners. They were given special privileges as long as they co-operated. If they didn't, the gas chambers were inevitable.
Guilt at doing what the Nazis wanted wormed its way into the men. They existed in the safety of what they called their Golden Cage, often hearing the screams of the dying from outside. Some found the name cards of gassed Jews in the suits they were allowed to wear.
Although Sorowitsch decided on pragmatism, if only to get medicine for a sick friend and keep himself alive, others were bent on sabotage.
The gelatine used for the printing was ruined and the production of pounds and dollars delayed. In the end, the war was won and the counterfeiters released. The last we see of Sorowitsch is at the tables in Monte Carlo, where he's deliberately losing the counterfeit bills he has hidden from the Nazis and smiling at the call-girl who sympathises with his bad luck.
Such a tale would seem an impossible fiction if it were not for the fact that it is well documented, and it is much aided by a memorable performance from Karl Markovics as Sorowitsch, a man who has gambled all his life and is now faced with a life or death bet.
Ruzowitzky's film weaves its way around this formidable yet mouse-like figure with skill, creating humour as well as drama. It's another example of the new German cinema reaching the world outside with honour. Not perhaps as good as The Lives of Others but as horrifyingly watchable.
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