Disproved in Two Weeks

On April 25, 1983, the magazine Stern presented what it said were Hitler’s diaries. Its editor-in-chief Peter Koch declared: Ab sofort muß die Geschichte des Dritten Reiches in weiten Teilen neu geschrieben werden. From now on, the history of the Third Reich must be rewritten in large parts. The publisher Gruner + Jahr had paid 9.3 million marks in cash. The Federal Institute for Materials Research, the Federal Criminal Police Office and the Federal Archives examined the volumes. On May 6, 1983, the Archives announced that they were forged. The paper could not date from the Nazi period. In 1985 the forger Konrad Kujau and the reporter Gerd Heidemann were sentenced to prison. The affair is remembered as the biggest media flop in the history of the Federal Republic. In 1992 Helmut Dietl turned it into the film Schtonk!

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