Media scandal from 1983

Discoverer of the forged “Hitler diaries” dead

"Stern" reporter Gerd Heidemann presented the alleged Hitler diaries at a press conference of the Hamburg magazine "Stern" in 1983.(Bild: APA/dpa/Chris Pohlert)

Former "Stern" reporter Gerd Heidemann has died at the age of 93. He presented the forged "Hitler diaries" in 1983.

According to "Stern", the former reporter for the magazine died in a Hamburg hospital on December 9.

Reporter fell for forgers
In April 1983, "Stern" announced a sensation. The magazine published alleged diaries of the dictator Adolf Hitler, which Heidemann claimed to have tracked down. Now "the biography of the dictator and with it the history of the Nazi state had to be rewritten in large parts", it said at the time. However, as it turned out shortly afterwards, the records were forged. Heidemann had been taken in by the forger Konrad Kujau, who had produced the alleged diaries himself over a period of months.

Heidemann had bought the diaries on behalf of his publishing house Gruner+ Jahr for 9.3 million marks in cash. They were to be published one by one, but this did not happen after the forgery was exposed. Eleven days after "Stern" had presented its sensational find, the forgery was exposed and "Stern" was disgraced.

Feature film dedicated to the scandal
A cinematic story that was also made into a film by Helmut Dietl under the title "Schtonk".

In 1985, Heidemann was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison for fraud for allegedly pocketing two million marks from the sensational business himself. Decades later, he still emphasized that he had not embezzled any money. Kujau received four and a half years in prison for the huge fraud, three of which he served. He finally died in mid-September 2000.