← Back to the front page

How Lies Surrounding the Alamo took Root and Other Historic Myths

Khalid Elhassan February 28, 2022 38 min

4. An Obvious Forgery That Fooled Many Experts

Conman Konrad Kujau, years later with a copy of the Stern magazine edition announcing the discovery of Hitler’s diaries. O Explorador

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.

Myth vs Fact - Hitler's diaries in Stern magazine — Hitler’s diaries in Stern magazine. Museum of Hoaxes

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.

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.