Private Schulz(1981)

Private Schulz is a six-part 1981 BBC comedy-drama that follows Gerhard Schulz, a petty criminal and fraudster conscripted into the SS during World War II. Played by Michael Elphick alongside Ian Richardson and Billie Whitelaw, Schulz hatches an audacious scheme to trick the Nazis into producing counterfeit British £5 notes on a massive scale, hoping to cripple the British economy. Based on the real but never-executed Operation Bernhard, the series balances dark humour with wartime tension as Schulz navigates the treacherous politics of Nazi Germany. Written by Jack Pulman, Private Schulz explores how one man's criminal cunning might exploit the machinery of fascism itself, blending satire with genuine peril.