to his assistant, Krüger disappeared with the genuine currency that he
had amassed from various illicit dealings, such as the sale of forged
passports and identity papers (he eventually reappeared and found
postwar employment at an electrical equipment firm). Many boxes
of currency and other materials were thrown in the Traun River and
Lake Toplitz, while the workers found a safe haven at the Ebensee
concentration camp, where they were liberated by American forces
shortly thereafter.
In 1943, the British government had become aware of the false
currency and, to avoid a panicked public response, merely announced
that bank notes larger than £5 would no longer be issued. Not until
Germany’s military defeat did the Allies learn of the startling dimen-
sions of the operation. Investigators concluded that 9 million bank
notes—in denominations of £1, £5, £20, and £50—with a total face
value of £140 million had been printed and inventoried. As nearly
two-thirds of that amount could not be accounted for, newly designed
pound sterling notes were released in fall 1945, but for many years
the counterfeit currency continued to surface throughout the world.
The final sequel occurred in 1959 when Stern magazine, after
having located Krüger and others, dispatched a team of divers with
specially designed equipment to Lake Toplitz. In addition to finding
an assortment of Nazi war materiel, they recovered a dozen boxes
of the false currency along with plates and record books. See also
EDEL, PETER.
BERNSTORFF, JOHANN HEINRICH COUNT VON (1862–1939).
The German envoy to the United States during World War I who was
connected to various espionage activities, Johann Heinrich Count
von Bernstorff was born in London on 14 November 1862, the son of
the Prussian ambassador to the Court of St. James. After a brief stint
in the army, Bernstorff embarked on a diplomatic career and served
in Dresden, Munich, London, and Cairo before his appointment to
the United States in fall 1908. As tensions mounted in Europe, his
overriding goal was to preserve American neutrality. At the outbreak
of war, Bernstorff promptly created a press office in New York City,
but its amateurish propaganda efforts met with little success. More-
over, a number of undercover operations in the United States, ranging
from the large-scale forgery of passports for German reserve officers
BERNSTORFF, JOHANN HEINRICH COUNT VON • 35
