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Bonkers Crimes and Criminals In History

Khalid Elhassan February 7, 2020 32 min

Thomas Blood - Royal Academy of Arts — Colonel Blood Stealing the Crown Jewels. Royal Academy of Arts

5. A Reporter Gone Rogue

Reputable news outlets got taken in by the forged Hitler diary. BBC

Once Hitler’s diary was published and German WWII experts finally got a look, they quickly spotted signs of obvious forgery. The paper used was modern, and so was the ink. Moreover, the diaries were riddled with glaring historical inaccuracies, concerning events and dates that the Fuhrer could not have possibly gotten wrong. They included entries in which Hitler described events before they had actually happened in real life – an impossibility without a time machine.

The diary had actually been created by a notorious German forger named Konrad Kujau, who 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.

Also Read: History’s Most Remarkable Hoaxes and Forgeries.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.