4. An Obvious Forgery That Fooled Many Experts
Once Hitler’s diaries were published and German WWII experts finally got the chance to take a look, it did not take them long to spot signs of obvious forgery. The paper used was modern, and so was the ink. Moreover, the diaries were riddled with major historical inaccuracies about events and dates that Hitler could not have possibly gotten wrong. There were even dated entries in which the Fuhrer described events before they had actually happened in real life – an impossibility unless Hitler had access to a time machine. An investigation revealed that the diary had been created by a notorious German forger named Konrad Kujau.
A conman with a track record of petty crimes, Kujau had made money in the 1970s from the sale of Nazi memorabilia smuggled from East Germany. Then he realized that he could charge even more if he forged authentication details to link the items to important Nazi figures. He eventually teamed up with Stern’s reporter Gerd Heidemann to rip off the magazine. In the fallout, historian Hugh-Trevor Roper’s reputation was ruined, and editors at Stern, the Sunday Times, and Newsweek, were fired. As to Kujau and Heidemann, they were tried and convicted of forgery and embezzlement, and sentenced to 42 months in prison.