The new Peaky Blinders film, The Immortal Man, draws on a real Second World War operation known as Operation Bernhard. Creator Steven Knight has woven this obscure historical event into the storyline, which sees the Shelby family involved in a Nazi plot to destabilise the British economy by flooding the country with forged banknotes.
Operation Bernhard was a German plan to forge British currency using prisoners from Sachsenhausen concentration camp. These prisoners were selected for their previous skills in printing and counterfeiting. The Nazis aimed to produce around £350 million in fake notes, which would be introduced into the UK economy to cause hyperinflation and cripple the war effort. According to Knight, the plan nearly succeeded.
The film opens with scenes of British banknotes being printed at Sachsenhausen. Later, a Nazi sympathiser named Beckett, played by Tim Roth, recruits Tommy Shelby's son Duke, played by Barry Keoghan, to help distribute the forged currency through criminal networks. The idea was to avoid suspicion by using organisations that would not question the notes' origins.
Knight explained that the Bank of England was forced to redesign banknotes and stop using certain denominations from 1942 onwards due to the prevalence of forgeries. However, the full extent of the operation was kept secret at the time. The film uses this historical backdrop as a starting point, exploring how the plot might have unfolded.
Another real event depicted in the film is the bombing of a Birmingham Small Arms factory in Small Heath by the German Luftwaffe on 19 November 1940. The attack killed 53 workers and is shown in the opening scenes. The film is dedicated to those who lost their lives that day.
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is released in cinemas on 6 March and will stream on Netflix from 20 March. The original series is available on BBC iPlayer.
