Seven countries manage to thrive under unique economic conditions
In the mid-to-late 1970s, Konrad Kujau began creating paintings he falsely attributed to Adolf Hitler, who had dabbled in art during his youth. Once Kujau found a market for these forgeries, he catered to buyers’ interests, producing works featuring cartoons, nudes, and action scenes—subjects Hitler never painted, nor likely would have wanted to paint.
The diaries were "discovered" by Konrad Kujau, a petty criminal who was also a skilled art forger and posed as an antique collector. Kujau claimed the diaries had been recovered from the wreckage of a plane crash in 1945 and had been hidden for years in a barn in East Germany.
The court sentenced self-confessed diaries forger Konrad Kujau to four years and six months in prison for a fraud and forgery conviction. On his release from prison after three years, Kujau became something of a minor celebrity, appearing on TV as a "forgery expert." Kujau died of cancer in 2000.
Forensic testing revealed the ink was modern, not wartime. Chloride evaporation analysis confirmed the diaries were written within the last two years. Later, Kujau confessed that he sprinkled tea over the pages and bashed the diaries against his desk to give them an aged look. He also revealed he had spent a month practicing writing in the old German gothic script used by Hitler.
Incredibly, no one noticed that Kujau, confused by the old German Gothic script, had mistakenly initiated all the books “FH” instead of “AH.” Nor that some of the comparative writing samples submitted to the experts were also penned by Kujau.
The editors-in-chief of Stern arrived holding 12 black notebooks, said to contain Adolf Hitler's personal writings. Images of Stern reporter Gerd Heidemann—who claimed to have come into possession of the manuscripts—posing with the diaries, quickly circulated globally, accompanied by reports of the incredible discovery.
Three days later, Stern published a special edition with excerpts from the diaries, the cover proclaiming “Hitler’s Diaries Discovered.” The magazine increased its circulation by 400,000 copies from the usual 1.8 million, and the special issue was sold at an additional 50 pfennigs (about US$0.26).
The first three diaries were immediately examined and renowned historians, experts from the Federal Archives, and the Rhineland-Palatinate State Criminal Police Office all confirmed their authenticity.
Sharing the discovery with a few colleagues at Stern, he reached out to Kujau—who quickly realized he had successfully hooked the reporter.
Heidemann brokered the deal for Stern, securing the rights to the diaries for 9.3 million Deutsche Marks (US$5.1 million). Stern then sold serialization rights to several media outlets.
On the day the diaries arrived at Stern, Felix Schmidt, one of the magazine’s three editors-in-chief at the time, noted in a piece titled 'Diary of the Diaries, that he had originally planned to assign Heidemann to cover the attempted assassination of the Pope in Turkey.
Buoyed by his success, Kujau grew more ambitious. He copied, by hand, the text of both volumes of 'Mein Kampf', despite the originals being completed on a typewriter. He even fabricated an introduction to a third volume of the work, which was eagerly purchased by one of his regular clients.
Former German officers who had served as aides to Hitler testified that he never kept a diary, and especially towards the end of the war, he wouldn't have had the time to do so. Furthermore, after the 1944 assassination attempt, Hitler had lost the use of his writing hand, making the creation of such diaries highly improbable.
When the Federal Criminal Police Office finally conducted an expert examination of the diaries, the evidence proving they were forgeries was straightforward and undeniable. The paper used for the notebooks was not from the time of the Third Reich, but rather was a type of paper that was developed in the 1950s, making it impossible for the diaries to be authentic.
Former Stern reporter Gerd Heidemann received four years and eight months for fraud in procuring the 60 volumes for the magazine. Heidemann had also stolen some of the money from Kujau, as well as keeping US$600,000 of the money Stern gave to acquire the diaries.
Heidemann was regarded as one of Stern’s top investigative reporters, known for rarely appearing in the newsroom and frequently vanishing for weeks without informing anyone of his whereabouts. He presented the diaries, claiming to have purchased them for a substantial sum from their alleged "finder," Konrad Kujau.
The elated Stern staff claimed that Hitler’s biography 'Mein Kampf' and the history of the Third Reich (Nazi Germany) would require major rewriting due to the revelations in the diaries, which they touted as offering unprecedented insight into Hitler’s personal thoughts and motivations.
On April 25, 1983, Stern, Europe’s largest current affairs publication at the time, held a press conference to make a monumental announcement. Multiple TV stations and over 200 journalists gathered at the Gruner & Jahr publishing house in Hamburg.
What was penned in the diaries was, for the most part, quite dreary and full of mundane observations. For example, it was written that Hitler’s partner, Eva Braun, requested that he go to see a doctor for a health check. "At Eva's request, I let my doctors examine me properly. The new pills cause strong flatulence, and as Eva said, bad breath."
Sensationalism, fake news, and fact-murky stories are a cultural norm in today’s digital landscape. Internet hackers, Tinder swindlers, and telephone scammers are rife, and who hasn’t been guilty of a Photoshop tweak here, or a pretty filter there, to portray a more flattering version of the truth? Deception is pervasive, and many media outlets are incentivized to craft clickbait stories in the relentless pursuit of views, clicks, downloads, subscriptions and ultimately, ad revenue. In contrast, the pre-digital era carried an expectation—if not a sacred trust—that media sources would deliver the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But even in those times, cracks occasionally surfaced, and one such crack became a global earthquake.
What started as a groundbreaking scoop for a German current affairs magazine, turned into one of the world’s most infamous journalistic scandals: The Hitler Diaries Hoax. We investigate the how, the why, and the who of this extraordinary con. Click through the gallery to uncover the truth behind one of history’s greatest media deceptions.
Among them was The Sunday Times, which enlisted historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, one of its independent directors, to authenticate the diaries. Trevor-Roper examined them and initially declared them genuine, lending credibility to the hoax.
Kujau also forged a series of war poems, which were so amateurish that he later admitted, "A fourteen-year-old collector would have recognized it as a forgery." Consumed by greed and ambition, Kujau escalated further, purchasing cheap notebooks in East Berlin and penning what would eventually become a 60-volume set of "Adolf Hitler’s diaries."
One of Kujau’s regular clients was businessman Fritz Stiefel, who collected Nazi artifacts and believed the diary he was shown to be genuine. Stiefel borrowed the diary, presenting it to Stern reporter Gerd Heidemann, who was also an avid collector of Nazi memorabilia. He had a deep fascination and obsession with the Nazi party.
Heidemann followed up on the suggestion that Adolf Hitler's diaries had been recovered from the crash site of a Nazi plane in East Germany. After visiting the location, he became convinced the books had genuinely been found there.
As the news of these diaries began to grow, so did doubt and skepticism. Press, historians, and handwriting experts questioned the authenticity of the diaries.
However, before he could track Heidemann down, Schmidt was summoned to the publisher's office, along with fellow editors Rolf Gillhausen and Peter Koch. There, half a dozen notebooks were laid out on the table.
The public prosecutor's office launched an investigation. Gerd Heidemann and Konrad Kujau ended up in court and both received prison sentences.
Another entry from the diary mentioned the British Prime Minister. "The English are driving me crazy—should I let them escape [from Dunkirk], or not? How is this Churchill reacting?"
Heidemann was renting expensive residences, buying new cars and jewelry, and buying more Nazi memorabilia—much of which was forged by Kujau. By 2008, Heidemann was living in poverty in Hamburg, surviving on a monthly welfare payment of €350 (US$368) and said to be in debt, estimated at €700,000 (US$736,420).
In 2013, Heidemann began lobbying for the return of the manuscripts, arguing that Stern publisher Gruner & Jahr was contractually obligated to return them.
Fourteen years after the scandal, all volumes of the forged diaries have been published online by German public broadcaster NDR in a scientifically annotated online edition released in February 2023. Though not written by Hitler, the diaries will still be remembered in history as one of the biggest journalism dupes of the 20th century.
Sources: (DW) (The New Yorker) (LA Times) (Britannica) (Wikipedia) (New York Times) (Independent)
The Hitler diaries hoax: a dark chapter in journalism history
Fake pages in history
LIFESTYLE History
Sensationalism, fake news, and fact-murky stories are a cultural norm in today’s digital landscape. Internet hackers, Tinder swindlers, and telephone scammers are rife, and who hasn’t been guilty of a Photoshop tweak here or a pretty filter there to portray a more flattering version of the truth? Deception is pervasive, and many media outlets are incentivized to craft clickbait stories in the relentless pursuit of views, clicks, downloads, subscriptions, and ultimately, ad revenue. In contrast, the pre-digital era carried an expectation—if not a sacred trust—that media sources would deliver the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But even in those times, cracks occasionally surfaced, and one such crack became a global earthquake.
What started as a groundbreaking scoop for a German current affairs magazine turned into one of the world’s most infamous journalistic scandals: The Hitler Diaries Hoax. We investigate the how, the why, and the who of this extraordinary con. Click through the gallery to uncover the truth behind one of history’s greatest media deceptions.