After the start of World War II, Germany quickly conquered Poland, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and other European countries with its strong military strength in the "blitzkrieg" mode, and Hitler's iron cavalry traveled through most of Europe.

However, when Hitler pointed the finger at the British Empire, which was only separated by the English Channel, Hitler unexpectedly ran into a hard bone.

Because although the military power of the British Empire in the past is no longer there, the so-called "emaciated camel is bigger than a horse", the British Empire, with its strong economic and financial strength, began to purchase a large number of advanced military weapons and equipment from the United States in a steady stream at the beginning of the war, forming a military confrontation with Germany.

For Germany, the "blitzkrieg" is their housekeeping skill and foundation, once it is dragged by Britain for a long time, the shortcomings of the German front too long and insufficient supply will be infinitely magnified, and what awaits them is only destruction!

Therefore, in order to win the whole war, Germany tried every means to quickly settle the war with Britain, but because of the powerful United States as its backer, it was unrealistic for Germany to solve Britain in a short time.

However, Germany is keenly aware that the most fundamental reason why Britain has been able to hold Germany back and stalemate with Germany for a long time is that Britain has strong economic and financial strength, and the pound sterling, as an international currency, can continuously purchase advanced military weapons and equipment from the United States.

Therefore, if Germany wants to win the war against Britain, it must fundamentally eliminate Britain's strong economic and financial power, so that the pound sterling will become a pile of waste paper, which can no longer be used to buy American weapons and military equipment.

So Hitler appointed Berhard, the head of the Nazi economic department, to start their secret operation to imitate the fake pound, which is also known in history as "Operation Belhard".

However, it is not easy to imitate the fake pound, you must know that the design of the pre-war pound is ingenious and exquisite, only the British pattern has been specially designed, and even the watermark process is exquisite.

Moreover, the British pound paper is made of cross-shaped crossed linen paper, and the numerical numbering is also rigorous and thoughtful, so before 1945, British banknotes were perfect and almost uncontrollable.

But that didn't bother the mad German Nazis, and Belhard managed to gather some 142 experts from Jewish prisoners, including counterfeiters, artists, and engravers, with the aim of copying the pound and setting up a production line for the counterfeit pound.

To do this, Belhard and his team spent a whole year designing production templates, stealing the keys used to generate serial numbers, creating watermarks, and improving the quality of the fakes produced.

And after the painstaking "PR" of Belhard and his team, they finally created a fake pound that could be completely faked.

And even the most senior minting experts of the Bank of England cannot distinguish the authenticity of these fake pounds, and it can even be said that these counterfeit coins are more real than the real ones.

Once the fake pounds were made, Berhard and his team set up countless production lines, producing hundreds of millions of fake pounds day and night.

Then the Germans frantically poured those fake pounds into the British market through plane drops, international trade, economic bribery and other means.

Some experts estimate that at its peak, the number of counterfeit German money in circulation in the British market amounted to 15%-30% of the total number of paper money.

With the injection of a large number of counterfeit money into the British economic market, Britain was caught off guard, and quickly caused serious inflation in the United Kingdom, and the British economy was in turmoil across the board for a while, and it has reached the precipice of collapse on all fronts.

And because no one was sure whether the pound in their hands was real or fake, it seriously hit the confidence of the whole world in the pound, and eventually led to the world having to give up the use of the pound, and the pound became a pile of waste paper for a while.

As a result, the Bank of England almost went bankrupt, and the pound quickly fell off the altar, ceding the status of the world's first common currency and reserve currency to the dollar.

It is no exaggeration to say that the "Nazi Fake Pound Incident" or "Operation Belhard" of the German Nazis was the pinnacle of economic attacks in the history of human warfare.

Although the German Nazis' desire to use the "Nazi fake pound incident" to conquer Britain ultimately failed.

However, the "Nazi fake pound incident" dealt a heavy blow to the economic and financial strength of the empire, allowing the pound to hand over the status of the world's first pass and reserve currency, which is definitely the heaviest blow suffered by the empire since its establishment, and there is no one!

After the end of World War II, in order to completely get rid of the serious impact of the "fake pound incident" on the British economy and society, although England did not hesitate to break its arm to survive, not only recovered all the 10 pounds that were the most counterfeited in the market.

Moreover, the Bank of England also spent a lot of money to buy back all the fake pounds on the market, and by January 9, 1951, the Bank of England had collected a total of 1860223 counterfeit notes of various denominations.

By 1959, the Bank of England had collected more than 3 million. Counterfeit banknotes were burned, but these were not the end of all Belhard notes.

In 1959, a diving team dived into a lake deep in the Austrian Alps, and after several days of searching, 13 heavily bound boxes containing about 420,000 "Belhard" banknotes of various denominations were pulled out of the frozen water.

Certified by the Guinness Book of World Records, it is also the largest storage of pen money ever discovered.

To add insult to injury, after the end of World War II, Berhard was tried in Paris, and he was sentenced to only two years in prison, after which he lived in Austria until his death in 1989.

Although Belhard is dead, it is rumored that after Berhard was released from prison, he was not idle, and he recorded the whole process and all the secrets of designing the counterfeit pound in a book.

Although after years of evolution, the pound has made great progress in terms of anti-counterfeiting keys, serial number generation, etc., but overall, the overall design concept and anti-counterfeiting principle cracking of the pound have not changed much.

In other words, if Belhard really recorded the overall design concept and anti-counterfeiting principles of designing the counterfeit pound, and was obtained by ill-intentioned people, the Bank of England is likely to suffer another catastrophe!

Therefore, for many years, the Bank of England has been secretly working with the British intelligence agencies --- the Sixth Military Division, struggling to find the "secrets" left by Belhard, but they have never been able to find it.