Ich bin ich. Die anderen sind die anderen.
(I'm myself. Everyone else is everyone else.)
(I'm myself. Everyone else is everyone else.)
— Salomon 'Sally' Sorowitsch
The Counterfeiters (German: Die Fälscher) is a 2007 German language film based on the true story of the Nazi Operation Bernhard, the largest counterfeiting operation in history. Jews and other concentration camp prisoners with artistic, printing, banking or counterfeiting experience are moved to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. They are forced to forge British pounds, in a Nazi plot to destabilise the British economy but the pounds are forged so well that the Germans decide to pay for the German war effort. Then the prisoners are told to print the American Dollar.
Burger, the communist collotype printer, resists the printing and together the prisoners manage to delay the printing until the war ends.
The subplot follows the main character, Sally Sorowitsch, a career forger and Jew as he befriends Berger and the young Russian artist, Kolya. Originally motivated by money and self-preservation, Sally begins to find honour in his existence.
This work provides examples of:
- Adaptation Name Change: Every significant character in Adolf Burger's memoir had their name changed in the film, except for the author himself and opera singer Isaak Plappler.
- Affably Evil: Sturmbannführer Herzog: When he arrests Sally in 1936 Berlin, Herzog cheerfully says that it's an honor to nab the Master Forger. They meet again in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where Herzog, who is assembling the counterfeiting team, says "We use a different tone here," in his domain. He hands out cigarettes to his prisoners and gives them regular civilian clothing—stolen from murdered Jews. The forging team gets better food and clean beds, and Herzog even gives them a ping-pong table. However, the film makes clear that Herzog is an utterly immoral SS monster who will happily kill Sally and everyone else on the team if they don't deliver. The kindnesses he shows are only his way of getting results.
- Body Wipe: Sally is eating at an outdoor restaurant in Monte Carlo. The camera zooms in on the back of a waiter bringing him a bottle of champagne—cut to 1936 and another waiter bringing champagne to Sally's table at a Berlin nightclub.
- Briefcase Full of Money: In the opening scenes Sally is living the highlife in 1945 Monte Carlo, carrying around a briefcase full of counterfeit dollars.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Non-comedic example. Near the end of the film, a disarmed Herzog wets himself when Sally corners him with his own gun.
- Counterfeit Cash: Naturally. Sally and his fellow inmates are forced by their Nazi captors to forge Allied currencies.
- Dramatic Gun Cock: How the audience finds out that Sally has grabbed Herzog's pistol in the darkened barracks building at night: by Sally dramatically working the slide of the Luger, chambering a round.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Herzog. During Sally's visit to his house, he is shown doting on his kids, and, rarely for his time, is adamantly opposed to corporal punishment.
- Evil Versus Evil: How Sally, who had to flee his home following the Russian Revolution, views the conflict between the Nazis and Communists. It's the main source of his antagonism towards Burger.
- Gallows Humor: From one of the Sachsenhausen inmates, "Why is there no God in Auschwitz? . . . He didn't make it through the selection process."
- How We Got Here: The opening shot has Sally on the French Riviera. The camera pans down to a broadside with the headline "La Guerre Est Finie", letting the audience know that this scene is taking place in May 1945 after the war is over.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Sally, well into middle age, and Kolya, the 20-year-old Russian and young artist. Sally takes Kolya under his wing and tries to protect him after they find out that Kolya has TB, something that would usually be an automatic death sentence in any concentration camp.
- Literal Metaphor: At the end, Sally's curvaceous French girlfriend mourns all the dough he just lost at the gaming tables, saying "So much money!" Sally's answer: "Don't worry, we can always make more." He can!
- The Magic Poker Equation: The dealer at Monte Carlo has a full house. Sally has four of a kind, an even better hand, but folds because he wants to gamble all his fake money away.
- Master Forger: Sally Sorowitsch is one of Europe's foremost experts in counterfeiting money. Unfortunately for him, he's also a Jewish man in Nazi Berlin. In exchange for his life, he and several other concentration camp prisoners agree to help with a scheme to flood America with counterfeit dollars in order to destroy the US economy and prevent them from joining World War II.
- Scars Are Forever:
- Sally's number. Sally takes a hot babe to bed in Monte Carlo, and she is shocked when she sees the number tattooed on his left arm.
- At the moment of liberation the clean, well-fed workers of Operation Bernhard are mistaken for SS men and nearly lynched by the newly-freed regular prisoners of Sachsenhausen. They prove that they are Jews by showing their number tattoos.
- Those Wacky Nazis: SS Major Herzog. He's creepy, but he certainly counts as wacky, what with the ping-pong table and all.
- Time Skip: A "Five Years Later" time skip reveals that Sally has survived years in Nazi concentration camps by making himself useful as an artist, drawing pictures and murals. He's then taken to Sachsenhausen and enrolled in the Counterfeit Cash operation.
- While Rome Burns: The counterfeiters are shielded from most of the excesses of camp life, and live in relative luxury, and some of their merrymaking comes off as an attempt to suppress their guilt.
