The Counterfeiters uncovers a little-known piece of Nazi concentration camp history and turns it into a riveting drama of survival.

A motley group of Jewish men – some from legitimate and others from not so legitimate backgrounds and led by master counterfeiter Salomon (Sally) Sorowitsch – are taken out of the concentration camp death-stream and set to work counterfeiting foreign currency for the Third Reich. For the Nazis, the plan was, somehow, to flood the U.S. and British markets with their own currency and by doing so undermine their economies. In essence, the men get to stay alive not only by helping the enemy, but by perhaps extending the war and necessarily adding to a greater death toll as well. Of course it is a deal with the devil and the irony is not lost on the men, but in the end the need to survive overrules, sometimes brutally, any lingering doubts the counterfeiters may have regarding the nature of their work.

If The Counterfeiters can be reduced to a single theme it is that of survival. Throughout the film, Sally, although no example of upright citizenship and played like such a one accustomed to life on the dark side by Karl Markowics, knows what side of the moral dilemma he is on. In a conversation with Adolf Burger (August Diehl), his young idealistic foil, Sally says, “I’d rather be gassed tomorrow than shot today. A Day is a day.” And this seems to be the reigning sentiment among the rest of the men.

When we are given glimpses into Sally’s life outside of forced labour and concentration camps, we see an apparently selfish man given to the satisfaction of desires. Placed against the moral absolutist Burger, Sally seems a downright scoundrel. Consequently, the differences in their characters lead to some of the film’s most tension filled moments: Burger is willing to sabotage the work of counterfeiting and risk death in order to resist a ruthless enemy, while Sally must perform a high wire act to simultaneously appease his Nazi captors and not lose Burger’s indespensible skills as a typographer – thus allowing the men to live for another day. In this way, the line between self-preservation and selfless concern for the welfare of others is brilliantly obscured.

Adding to the film’s sense of moral inconclusiveness is the relationship between SS Chief Inspector Friedrich Herzog (performed by a boyish Devid Striesow) – the man in charge of overseeing the counterfeiting operation – and Sally. In a very real way the two men are exact reflections of the other: they are both working to save their own skins. With the war coming to a close, Herzog is forced into playing the survival game as well. Towards the end of the film when he says to Sally, “One has to look after oneself,” he is essentially repeating the same selfish attitude of the master counterfeiter. But Herzog’s basic treatment of Sally and his men, his affording them a measure of comfort and care while surrounded by deprivation, makes his character hard to equate with cinematized versions of the evil Nazi.

Filmed on grainy stock and seemingly through a grey filter, The Counterfeiters retains a sense of unreality, of existing in a world where meaning and truth are inherently unstable. But this shouldn’t be a surprise given a situation where basic human survival outweighs any competing interest, moral or otherwise.