Operation Bernhard was the largest counterfeiting operation in history, run by the SS and carried out by Jewish prisoners inside the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. This episode begins with Arthur Nebe's 1939 proposal to rain 30 billion fake pounds on Britain, the technical work of reverse-engineering rag paper, ultraviolet fluorescence, hidden marks, and serial-number algorithms, and how office politics derailed the first effort before Himmler revived it as a black budget for espionage.

It follows SS Major Bernhard Krüger's recruitment of engravers, printers, and bankers, the strange conditions in Blocks 18 and 19, and the aging department that pricked and folded notes to make them look used. The conversation covers money launderer Friedrich Schwend's one-third cut, the order to forge the US $100 bill, the prisoners' deliberate slowdown, ...