The Counterfeiters

Watching the movie The Counterfeiters and carrying out the activities in this resource can be useful for addressing different subjects such as: History, Social Sciences, Arts and Education for Citizenship. It is targeted at high school students.

The resource has three didactive objectives: the analysis of a historical era, team work and practising the use of media literacy skills. 

Before watching the movie, we will carry out background research about “Operation Bernhard” which was aimed at generating a global economic imbalance by distributing counterfeit dollars, and which inspired the movie. 

We propose to divide the class into four groups. Each one will seek information regarding the following topics: Economic context of the years before World War II (1935 - 1939), how the main countries participating in World War II financed the war, in particular Germany, what was the "operation Bernhard or Krüger", and the biographical details of Salomon Sorowitsch, protagonist of the movie.

In order to make a collaborative work utilising ICT we propose to use a WIKI space, you can register at www.wikispaces.com; each student can participate and will be evaluated for their personal contribution.

After watching the movie, we suggest a final comparison of the perspectives portrayed in the movie and the original facts and documents from that period.