The Adolf Hitler Diaries

By Justin Swick | View Questioned Documents Kit
Download Full-Color PDF Version

In 1979, Gerd Heidemann, a journalist from Der Stern magazine was approached by a man named Dr. Fischer, who claimed to possess Adolf Hitler's secret diaries written between 1932 and 1945. Dr. Fischer said that the diaries were retrieved from an airplane carrying Hitler's personal effects that crashed near Dresden . Local farmers retrieved them from the wreckage and they came into the possession of an East German general who hid them until the early 80's where they were secretly transported out of East Germany by Dr. Fischer, one at a time, hidden inside pianos.

Der Stern was initially highly skeptical of the diaries, but as Heidemann worked for years researching the project, interest in the project grew. Heidemann also traveled to Boernersdorf (near Dresden ) to research the plane crash. A Junkers 352 transport plane that was carrying some of Hitler's personal belongings actually did crash there! Der Stern eventually bought the diaries for two million marks ($800k). While Der Stern was reviewing the first few volumes, new ones were discovered and bought. Heidemann was skimming money off the top of each transaction by acting as a middle man. With each new volume, Der Stern's story increased in value and Heidemann's bank account inflated (eventually to 1.7M marks). The sum of Der Stern's payments through Heidemann was 9.9 million marks ($4M) for 62 volumes of diaries.

April 22, 1983, Der Stern announced that it had acquired Adolf Hitler's diaries. The article claimed that the real Hitler was much different than recorded history has indicated. In these writings, he was portrayed as a man who had no involvement in Kristallnaucht and wished to deport the Jewish people to another country in the East rather than exterminate them. Was the Final Solution actually Hitler's idea? These documents suggested that it wasn't.

Sixty-two documents were now being sold by Der Stern. Bidders including Newsweek, The London Times, and Bantam Books attempted to acquire the manuscripts. Before bidding on the diaries, The London Times requested that two handwriting analysis experts, Ordway Hilton and Dr. Max Frei-Sulzer, be brought in to verify the authenticity of the handwriting. Both agreed that handwriting samples provided by Heidemann matched the diary selections they were sent to analyze. It was later discovered that the samples of Hitler's writing provided by the West Germany Federal Archives were actually forgeries!

Not everyone believed that these diaries were real. David Irving was the most outspoken critic of the Hitler Diaries. He claimed that the journals handwriting didn't look like Hitler's and the contents of the journals disagreed with historical accounts of the events of that era. Mr. Irving was a scholar of Hitler's life and reign. In 1977 he wrote a book entitled “Hitler's War” based on historical accounts as well as writings of Hitler's subjects and letters within the Third Reich. This book tried to write an account of the war “as far as possible through Hitler's eyes, from behind his desk.” During the writing of this book, he had managed to collect many scraps of letters, signatures, and other documents that were until now, next to worthless. He appeared on the “Today” show on NBC and was interviewed by many other media networks. His testimony of the falsification of the documents generated a lot of media excitement.

Upon review by the West Germany Federal Archives, many of the entries were taken from “Hitler's Speeches and Proclamations” a book written by former Nazi federal archivist, Max Domarus. Errors from this document were repeated in the diaries. They were then chemically tested. Experts analyzed the ink and found that it was less than a year old. The paper was placed under an ultraviolet light and contained a paper whitening chemical that was not used in paper manufacturing until 1954. The glue and bindings were also created after World War II. When another sample of Hitler's writing was compared to the questioned documents, it was found that the handwriting was not his.

Heidemann was fired and the owner of Der Stern sued him for fraud. When questioned by police, Heidemann blamed the scam on the man who sold the documents to Dr. Fischer. When the forgeries were revealed, Dr. Fischer disappeared. On May 14, 1983, Konrad Kujau, who until now was known as Dr. Konrad Fischer, turned himself into German police as an act of compliance, but claimed that he was not involved in the Hitler Diary scam.

On May 26, 1983, Konrad Kujau confessed that the diaries were forgeries and that he created them. He also indicated that Heidemann had always known the diaries were fake. Heidemann was arrested by police and placed in the same jail as Kujau. Two years later, Kujau was convicted of writing the diaries himself. It was revealed during the trial that he founded a world war two memorabilia store and was believed to be one of the largest Third Reich collectors in West Germany . In an effort to increase his profits, he began forging some of the artifacts and creating false authenticity documentation. He then began forging handwriting by selling Adolf Hitler's signature and later wrote two additional volumes to Mein Kampf. After these writings he started working on handwritten diaries of Hitler's personal experiences and didn't actually finish them until January 1981 after he had sold them to Der Stern.

Heidemann and Kujau both served less than five years in prison for their crimes and when the trial ended there was still a great sum of money which Der Stern paid to Heidemann that was unaccounted for. Kujau went on to start a legitimate business selling reproductions of famous artwork. He didn't quite stay out of trouble, but for the most part, he led an uneventful life until his death in 2000.

References

• Evans, Colin. “The Casebook of Forensic Detection: How Science Solved 100 of the World's Most Baffling Crimes.” John Wiley & Sons Inc. 1996.
• Magnuson, Ed. "Hitler's Forged Diaries." Time . May 16, 1983. p.36-47.
• Ramsland, Katherine. “Literary Forensics.” CourtTV Crime Library. http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/forensics/literary/1.html. Last accessed on February 15, 2007.
• Bell , Rachel “The Hitler Diaries, a notorious case of forgery.” CourtTV Crime Library. http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/scams/hitler_diaries/index.html. Last accessed on February 15, 2007.
• Mishalov. "Konrad Kujau." Sept. 14, 2000.
• Saferstein, Richard. “ Criminalistics: An Introduction to Forensic Science.” 6th Edition. Prentice Hall, 1995.
• Harris, Robert. “Selling Hitler.” Pantheon Books , 1986.