Private Schulz

- Season 1

(1981)

Released from prison in August 1939, Schulz is called up and posted to SS Counter-Espionage, under Major Neuheim. He is sent to the Salon Kitty brothel to listen for any indiscreet conversations in the rooms, which have been bugged. There he meets Bertha, but she is unimpressed by a mere Private. British leaflet raids have started dropping forged clothing coupons; Neuheim suggests retaliating in kind with forged documents dropped on Britain, including - at Schulz's prompting - currency. Set the task of forging five pound notes, Schulz assembles a group of forgers and ...

Production of the forged currency gets under way in Barracks 19 of Saxenhausen concentration camp. The manufacturing and printing difficulties have been overcome and Schulz is blackmailing Professor Bodelschwingh - who works for the rival organisation of Military Intelligence - to solve the final problem, the serial numbering sequence. After being caught at the Salon Kitty trying to spend some of the money, which he had stolen, Schulz is given a choice - face a firing squad, or parachute into Britain with two million pounds.

Schulz lands in Britain and buries most of the money next to a road, using a milestone as a landmark. After arousing suspicion by trying to order first whiskey, and then coffee, in a pub, he telephones the contact he has been given, Melfort, to arrange a rendezvous. Schulz is rightly cautious as Melfort is controlled by the British and leaves instead of keeping the rendezvous. Already suspected of being a spy, he runs to the coast and steals a small boat, crossing the Channel to arrive at the Dunkirk evacuation. Fleeing further inland, he arrives at a seemingly ...

Returned in disgrace to Berlin, Schulz suggests keeping the operation going and using the money to pay agents and buy valuables; while Neuheim runs the operation from a Castle, he is kept working at Barracks 19. A plan of his to steal a consignment of money misfires and instead Schulz has to deliver it to the castle; once there he is sent on another mission with £1 million. With Neuheim's secretary, Gertrude Steiner, he plans to steal the money by dumping their driver, Gruber, but is instead himself dumped by Gertrude and Gruber. When they are caught Schulz's plan is ...

In late 1944 the workers and equipment are evacuated from Saxenhausen to the labour camp Schulz is in, and he is able to get himself posted to act as Neuheim's clerk again. Ordered, as the war draws to an end, to move into the Alpine Last Redoubt, he forges orders allowing him to take the prisoners as well, rather than shoot them; after releasing the prisoners he dumps the equipment and money in a lake, but is promptly caught by an American patrol. Released later in 1945, he is found by Neuheim and forced to retrieve the money from the lake. He has no sooner succeeded...

Released from prison and penniless, Schulz discovers he still has the map showing the location of the buried money in Britain. Once back there, he has to recruit Stan, a local criminal, to help him dig for it beneath the public lavatory built over the spot. Recovering the canister of money, Stan and his gang try to double-cross Schulz but he is able to seize the canister and escape. Closely pursued by Stan, he throws it into a rowing dinghy, only for its booby-trap to explode and destroy all the money. Returning to Britain by ferry, he meets Bertha and they agree to ...