In 1983, the art forger Konrad Kujau sold Adolf Hitler’s alleged diaries to “Stern”. What follows is one of the biggest press scandals in post-war history. Now the NDR wants to publish all 60 volumes of the forgery with a critical classification.
40 years after the scandal surrounding the forged Hitler diaries, the North German Broadcasting Corporation (NDR) is publishing the complete 60 volumes of the forgery in a critical edition on the Internet. The text is also accompanied by a scientific commentary by the Berlin historian Hajo Funke, the NDR announced in Hamburg. For the first time, the intention of the falsification to reinterpret and downplay Nazi history becomes fully clear. In April 1983, the “Stern” published Adolf Hitler’s alleged diaries as an alleged sensation. A few days later they turned out to be fake. It was one of the biggest German press scandals.
The books were made by the art forger Konrad Kujau, who, according to NDR research, is said to have been more deeply involved in a neo-Nazi environment than was previously known. A “Stern” reporter bought the recordings on behalf of his publisher. They should be released gradually. “These diaries are an expression of Holocaust denial,” Funke explained. “They wanted to absolve Hitler of the worst crimes of the Nazis.” The central narrative of the forged diaries is that Hitler allegedly knew nothing about the Holocaust. The historian Heike Görtemaker explained that the “fictitious Hitler” in the diaries had nothing to do with the “National Socialist violent crimes”. “Kujau invents a positive Hitler figure here.”
In numerous places, the forgery tells how a supposed Hitler campaigned for a benevolent solution for the Jews. At a time when the Holocaust had long been unleashed, the fictitious Hitler wrote that the Jews should be encouraged to emigrate quickly – or they should be found a “safe area in the occupied territories”. According to NDR information, the handwriting of the fake diaries could be made legible and researchable with the help of artificial intelligence. It turns out that none of the terms related to the Holocaust appear. Keywords like “final solution” or “gas chamber” are completely absent.
According to NDR information, the original volumes of the forged diaries are locked in a safe belonging to the Hamburg publishing house Gruner Jahr. The NDR project is based on copies of the diaries. A release of the originals to the Federal Archives promised by Stern in 2013 has not yet taken place. The diaries should be accessible on the NDR website from early Thursday evening.
