In 1983, a windy forger and a reporter with a good nose fooled the magazine "Stern". With Hitler's supposed diaries they want to present the Nazi dictator privately - and temporarily ruin the credibility of the magazine.
by Helene Heise, NDR.de
"F.H.! What's that supposed to mean? Führer Hitler? Führer's dog? Führer Headquarters? He probably wasn't called Fritze Hitler!" Director Helmut Dietl was able to draw on unlimited resources for the dialogues in his film "Schtonk" in 1991:Hardly any media scandal offers as much comedic potential as the fake Hitler diaries that the Hamburg news magazine "Stern" published in 1983. Not only were the initials wrong on the supposed diaries, the other ingredients are also correct:an editor with a good nose and a fatal penchant for the Nazi cult, a dazzling counterfeiter and a publishing management that wanted to believe so much in the really big coup that they probably produced the biggest laughing stock in the history of the German media.
Hitler Diaries:Greed on Many Pages
In his book about the scandal, published in 2008, Michael Seufert describes the fact that private greed also drove those involved:"With the secret project of the Hitler diaries, Gruner + Jahr found the world upside down from the start. And for those involved, careers are at stake , power and, above all, a lot of money." Seufert, entrusted with the investigation by "Stern" founder Henri Nannen after the scandal, reconstructed the adventurous story after 25 years.
On the trail of the diaries
The details are just as unbelievable as they are involuntarily funny:"Stern" reporter and "sleuth" Gerd Heidemann has been dealing with the Nazi era since the early 1970s. In 1980, through fellow collectors, he came into contact with the forger Konrad Kujau, who appeared to Heidemann under the pseudonym Konrad Fischer. He reports to Heidemann about the Hitler diaries:In the final days of the war, Adolf Hitler's personal notes were lost in a plane crash. But the cargo turned up at the crash site in the GDR, he could organize the smuggling across the inner-German border with the help of relatives - after all, his brother-in-law was the museum director and his brother was an NVA officer in the East.
The publishing house management agrees
Heidemann inaugurates the head of the contemporary history department at "Stern", Dr. Thomas Walde, into the supposed sensational story. Together they both bypass the editor-in-chief of the magazine and go directly to the publishing house management, because they need a lot of money to get the diaries. The two journalists convince her:Heidemann and Walde get the green light for their secret project.
Belief in the sensation covers doubt
Movie "Schtonk!":Willié (Götz George, m) proudly presents the "hot" documents to his department head Kummer (Harald Juhnke).For almost three years, a total of 9.34 million marks went to Heidemann and Kujau. Numerous indications of a forgery are not only ignored by the alleged top researcher of the "Stern", who has now been pursuing his own financial interests for a long time. Department head Walde, the editor-in-chief and the management of the publishing house also close their eyes and ears when new indications from contemporary witnesses and experts emerge that they could be caught by a fraudster. For example, a former member of the "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler" remembers some facts in a very different way. Experts warn against forgeries from dubious sources, and even before publication there are indications that the diaries were written on post-war paper. The fact that the originally announced 27 diaries that Hitler is said to have written have meanwhile increased to 60 and that their price is constantly increasing doesn't surprise anyone at "Stern".
Checks are avoided
The contract between the two journalists and the management of the publishing house is fatal:it not only guarantees them a share in the profits of publication and the sale of rights abroad. In addition, the contract secures them the exclusive right to evaluate the documents and also exempts reporter Heidemann from the obligation to disclose his source. All editorial control mechanisms are thus switched off, because the publishing house management and reporters want to believe in the really big sensational find - and with it the really big business.
From the "star" hour to the catastrophe
On April 25, 1983, the time had come:With great fanfare, the "Stern" published the first part of the series on the Hitler diaries. At the press conference, Heidemann presented himself with the black notebooks, the editor-in-chief announced in the magazine that appeared three days later that history had to be rewritten. But even on this day, serious concerns are raised. Renowned experts doubt the authenticity of the sources from the first moment.
Kujau copies from textbooks
The spook is over after only twelve days:the Federal Archives and the Federal Criminal Police Office, with the help of chemical analyzes and historical research, come to the same conclusion:The diaries are a forgery - and a rather clumsy one at that. Forger Kujau copied pages from published Hitler speeches and specialist books, enriching the whole thing with banal notes from everyday life. Publishing management and editor-in-chief have to backtrack, "Stern" founder Henri Nannen apologizes to the readers.
The two "Stern" editions on the "discovery" of the diaries and on the exposure of the swindle are in the Hamburg Police Museum.The publishing management didn't want to see it:Objections were dismissed, even the false initials on the diaries, which were made into a joke in the film "Schtonk", left no one at "Stern" in doubt about the supposed sensational find. At the time, Hitler himself was upset about the mistake, editor-in-chief Felix Schmidt is said to have responded to the legitimate request for the "F." responded at the press conference.
Prison sentences for Heidemann and Kujau
The damage to the image of the former prestigious newspaper is enormous:the circulation collapses and credibility is gone. As a result, the editors-in-chief at "Stern" hand over the handle. Kujau and Heidemann are sentenced to several years in prison for fraud and forgery. To this day, the scandal surrounding the Hitler diaries is considered a prime example of the possible consequences of too close a mixture of economic and editorial interests.