Making Money
‘WE have little to thank the Nazis for. Their presence runs like a scar across history, sending a gelid shudder down the spine of any of us who have in any way been touched by their evil regime.
| A face made for TV |
But in purely televisual terms, the Nazis legacy has been enormous.
Entire TV stations are utterly dependent on the images the German war machine left behind. Just take a look at UK Historys output this week: Churchill; Weapons of World War II; and Seeds of War.
And TV executives love nothing more than a new angle on the last big war. So tonight Channel 4 brings us The Great Nazi Cash Swindle.
The show centres on a group of Jewish prisoners made to produce forged British banknotes by their German persecutors, on pain of death.
The plan was to drop the entire bundle on Britain; this would lead to spiralling inflation and unsettle the government.
It was a fiendish plan. And it might just have worked had it not been for a change of tack – the Germans used the cash to fund covert operations.
It makes for a gripping story, made no less so than by the testimonies of four of the forgers at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.’
Posted: 19th, January 2004 | In: Celebrities Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
