On your own behalf
Fake Hitler diaries handed over to the Federal Archives
The so-called Hitler-Diaries were made by the painter Konrad Kujau and by star-Reporter Gerd Heidemann was purchased for the magazine
© Walter Schießwohl / STERN
40 years ago, the scandal surrounding the vom star published fake Hitler diaries in the Federal Republic. Now the Bertelsmann Group has transferred them to the Federal Archives.
It was supposed to be a world sensation and ended for him star in a fiasco: 40 years ago the fake Hitler diaries were presented. Now that’s it Federal Archives in Koblenz, like the Bertelsmann Group, to which the star heard, announced on Thursday.
The 52 notebooks are to be digitized after an archival inventory and made available in digital form in accordance with the Federal Archives Act. Two of the books are also in exhibitions in the House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn, three in the Police Museum in Hamburg and one at the Fondation Cartier in Paris.
The fake Hitler diaries are to be digitized
Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Rabe emphasized: “By handing over the fake”Hitler diaries” to the Federal Archives, their professional archiving is ensured. It also opens up the possibility of dealing with the fake diaries in a transparent, scientific and independent manner.”
Michael Hollmann, President of the Federal Archives, said: “The fake ‘Hitler Diaries’ had the dangerous potential to trivialize the brutal crimes of National Socialism in the 1980s. It is good that the evidence of this difficult chapter in the Federal Republic’s post-war history has now been secured in the Federal Archives and can be identified as forgeries in the context of the authentic sources. This closes a circle for the Federal Archives, which was involved in uncovering the forgery.”