I have just watched “The Counterfeiters” on German TV. Here is a short summary I found on dw-world (”Film on Nazi Counterfeiting Operation Wins Oscar” by Tamsin Walker, dw, Feb 25, 2008):
(…) “The Counterfeiters,” sheds light on a little-known chapter of Nazi history. It tells the spectacular tale of the largest forgery operation of all time, conducted from within the squalor of one of Hitler’s concentration camps.
For the last three years of the Second World War, 142 prisoners in the Sachsenhausen camp, north of Berlin, were forced by their captors to counterfeit millions of British and US banknotes in an attempt to bring the enemy economies to their knees. (…)The film, directed by Austrian Stefan Ruzowitzky, is based on a true account of the forgery workshop as told in Adolf Burger’s book “Des Teufels Werkstatt” (The Devil’s Workshop). It follows a character called Salomon Sorowitsch, loosely based on a notorious counterfeiter of that time named Salomon Smolianoff. (…)
I read the book back in 1992 when I stayed in Kibbuz Kfar Masaryk. Adolf Burger`s brother lives in that kibbuz and he passed it to me. Although I think the movie is well made, after all it won the Oscar for best foreign-language film in 2008, I prefer the book.
Trailer
Trailer including interviews with director and actor