Season 1 • Episode 6
LatestOnce again, Schulz is penniless and a released convict. He discovers he still has the map showing the location of the buried money in Britain. Travelling back and recruiting local criminal Stan to help him dig for it beneath the public lavatory built over the spot, the money is recovered. However, Stan and his gang try to double-cross Schulz but Schulz manages to escape with the canister of money and is pursued by Stan.
Private Schulz is a six-part 1981 television comedy-drama serial written by Jack Pulman and produced for BBC Two. It stars Michael Elphick in the title role, with Ian Richardson, Tony Caunter, Billie Whitelaw, Billy Murray, and Mark Wingett. Set primarily in Germany, during and immediately following World War II, fraudster and petty criminal Gerhard Schulz is forced to serve in the SS. In a story based on the real, though unrealised, plot by the Germans known as Operation Bernhard, Schulz tricks the Nazis into making counterfeit British £5 notes, millions of which will be used to destroy the British economy.
Acting
Elphick's shifty charm makes you complicit in every lie.
Writing
Pulman weaponizes bureaucratic absurdity against horror.
Production
BBC precision recreating Operation Bernhard's insane true scope.
Creator
Jack Pulman
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The real Operation Bernhard produced £3 billion in counterfeit notes; most were dumped in Lake Toplitz, Austria, and recovered in 1959.
Jack Pulman died before transmission, making Schulz his swan song—fitting for a writer who specialized in moral complexity in 'I, Claudius' and 'A Family at War.'
AU
GB
