92
made up a fantastic yet plausible
tale about how the diaries had been
recovered from a Nazi plane crash
in 1945 and hidden away for
decades in a barn.Making a deal
At the end of 1979, news of the
diary began to filter through to
collectors of Hitler memorabilia.
Desperate for a journalistic scoop,
Heidemann tracked down Kujau,
who told him there were more
volumes hidden in East Germany.
Heidemann took the news to Stern,
whose publishers provided him
with the money to purchase them.
Heidemann promised Kujau
2.5 million Deutschmarks (about
£1.6 million today) for the “rest” of
the diaries. The forger set to work,
producing 60 more volumes. By
the end of February 1981, Stern
had spent nearly 1 million marks
(£627,000) on the diaries. Less
than half had gone to Kujau:
Heidemann kept the rest, duping
both the newspaper and the
forger. After the delivery of 12
diaries, Heidemann claimed the
price had risen, telling Stern that
it had become harder to smuggle
them out of East Germany.Heidemann continued to purchase
the diaries throughout 1981,
periodically telling Stern of price
increases. Ultimately, Heidemann
would collect 9.3 million marks
(£5.8 million) from Stern, of which
Kujau received less than a third.
The journalist lived lavishly off the
proceeds, buying an apartment,
expensive cars, and more Nazi
memorabilia from Kujau.
In April 1982, Stern’s
management asked handwriting
experts to verify the diaries,
providing them with samples of
Hitler’s writing. Unbeknown to the
experts, the samples were from
Heidemann’s collection of Nazi
memorabilia and had also been
forged by Kujau. The experts
declared the journals to be genuine.
The first historian to examine the
diaries, Professor Hugh Trevor-
Roper, proclaimed them authentic,
bolstering the confidence of Stern’s
management, but later tarnishing
the historian’s reputation.KONRAD KUJAU
The last volume of the Hitler Diaries,
complete with Kujau’s authentication,
was sold at Berlin auction house
Jeschke, Greve, and Hauff for €6,500
(£4,000) in 2004.In late April 1983, Stern broke the
story of the existence of the diaries,
triggering a flurry of headlines
around the world. The diaries, it
said, revealed that Hitler’s Final
Solution was to deport the Jewish
people, not annihilate them, which
led some commentators to say the
history of the Third Reich would
have to be rewritten.Suspicions surface
However, the banality of some
of the entries caused more sceptical
historians to denounce the
documents as forgeries. When
suspicions about their authenticity
g rew, Stern commissioned forensic
experts from Germany’s
Bundesarchiv (Federal Archive)
to analyze the diaries.
Meanwhile, Stern’s 28 April
issue gave the public its first
glimpse of the diaries. The
following day, Heidemann met
with Kujau and bought the last
four volumes. Within a week, Stern
management learned that the
forensic experts had determined
conclusively that the diaries wereKonrad Kujau
Born in poor circumstances in
1938 in Löbau, Germany, Konrad
Kujau was one of five children.
In 1933, his parents joined the
Nazi Party and Kujau grew up
idolizing Adolf Hitler, a fixation
that continued after Hitler’s
suicide and the defeat of Nazi
Germany in World War II.
By the 1960s, Kujau was a
petty criminal with a record for
forgery, theft, and fighting in
bars. In 1970, while visiting
family in East Germany, he
found that many people thereowned Nazi memorabilia, in
spite of laws prohibiting this.
Seeing an opportunity, Kujau
bought Nazi items on the black
market and took them back to
West Germany to sell.
By 1974, Kujau had amassed
such a collection of Nazi
memorabilia at his home that his
wife Edith complained so he
rented a shop in Stuttgart to
store it. It was then that he
started to increase the value of
his items by adding details. He
gradually became more
ambitious and began to forge
Hitler’s manuscripts.090-093_Konrad_Kujau.indd 92 12/12/2016 17:12
93
A talented painter, after his release,
Kujau began creating works in the style
of other artists, selling them as
“genuine Kujau fakes”.fakes. The journals were made with
post-war ink, paper, glue, and
binding. Ultraviolet light showed a
fluorescent element in the paper
that did not exist in 1945. The
bindings of one of the diaries
included polyester, a fibre that was
not created until 1953.
Before Stern could make their
own announcement on the findings,
the German government stepped in
and declared that the diaries were
clear forgeries. Stern’s management
demanded Heidemann reveal the
name of his source, which he did.The downfall
By then, Kujau and his wife had
fled to Austria. Upon learning that
Heidemann had double-crossed
him, the forger turned himself in to
the police. Bitter that Heidemann
had kept so much of the money, he
claimed the journalist had known
the diaries were fake.
On 21 August 1984, Heidemann
and Kujau stood trial for defrauding
Stern out of 9.3 million marks. Both
men blamed each other during the
trial. In July 1985, Heidemann was
sentenced to four years and eight
months and Kujau to four years and
six months.
When Kujau was released from
jail in 1987, he embraced infamy.
He found a market painting and
selling copies of famous artworks
and became a minor celebrity on
TV, until he died of cancer in 2000
at age 62. Heidemann was also
released from prison in 1987 but
never worked as a journalist
again. The scandal was hugely
detrimental for Stern. The once-
lauded magazine was disgraced
for irresponsible journalism. ■CON ARTISTS
Six clues that the diaries were forged
Whitener and
fibres in the paper
were manufactured
after World War IIThe accidental use
of the initial “F”
instead of “A”Evidence that
Kujau plagiarized
German writer
Max DomarusHistorical
inaccuraciesHis use of
modern inkAt least one set
of initials glued on
the front was made
of plastic090-093_Konrad_Kujau.indd 93 02/12/2016 14:42