Is Faking Hitler based on a true story? Hitler Diaries hoax explained

Kujau was born in Germany in 1938 and raised under the Nazi regime, becoming a genuine believer in its fascist ideology. In the years after World War II, he turned to a life of petty crime, fleeing from East Germany to West when authorities issued an arrest warrant for his theft of a microphone from a youth club.

From then, he developed an interest in counterfeiting, creating a new identity for himself which was ultimately detected, landing him in prison as a result. By the 1970s, Kujau was a free man once more and visiting relatives in East Germany when he discovered many of them still held Nazi memorabilia, despite this being strictly prohibited by the communist government.

There was a more flexible policy in West Germany, where the very same items were fetching high prices among collectors. Spying a money-making opportunity, he began smuggling the memorabilia from the East to West and selling them for a profit, which was a business that put him in contact with fellow Nazi enthusiasts.

Kujau inflated the value of his stock by forging documents claiming they belonged to prominent members of the Nazi regime. After years of successfully scamming collectors, he decided to escalate the con, setting about producing the long-rumoured secret diaries of Adolf Hitler.

Though it remains uncertain if such documents ever existed, some have speculated that they could have been aboard a downed plane that fled Berlin during Operation Seraglio. The purpose of the plan was to evacuate Hitler's most trusted allies from the frontlines as Russian forces closed in on his bunker.

Sergeant Wilhelm Arndt, who served as Hitler's personal valet, was one of these individuals, whose aircraft reportedly contained documents that were "extremely valuable" to his boss. They were never recovered from the debris of the crash and it remains unknown to this day what they might have been.

Imagining, as many others did, that they were personal diaries, Kujau set about recreating what they might have contained, learning Hitler's handwriting and attempting to line up entries with historical records. The first diary was written on a notebook that he simply attached an SS ribbon too, while he also artificially aged the pages using tea.

Gerd Heidemann was a journalist born in Germany in 1931, who had Nazi ties from his upbringing in the Hitler Youth and went on to have an affair with Edda Göring (daughter of senior Nazi figure Hermann). Through this vast network, he gained word of Kujau's forged diary, which he then believed to be the real thing.

Heidemann made it his singular goal to obtain the so-called Hitler diaries. Publishing house Gruner and Jahr, whose portfolio included news magazine Stern, provided Heidemann a figure with which to negotiate a sale of the documents to them.

After much discussion, an agreement was reached for an initial batch of volumes of the diaries, with Kujau claiming that the rest were stuck in East Germany until further notice. As reported at the time, Heidemann himself had a scam on the go, telling Gruner and Jahr execs that Kujau was demanding more money, but in reality, pocketing that extra cash for himself.

With so much on the line, the publishers of course did some investigation into the authenticity of the diaries, with initial inspection by historians being quite positive. They were only shown small sections from the documents and under the belief that some chemical analysis had already taken place, but this was still professionally damaging to those involved later on.

On 24th April 1983, excerpts from the diaries were published in the international press, with The Sunday Times covering in the UK. But upon exposure to a mass audience, the forgery was very clearly detected and Heidemann was suddenly under intense pressure to disclose his source, who had until then remained anonymous.

Among the mounting evidence against the diaries were historical errors and handwriting inconsistencies, while forensic examination revealed the ink was less than two years old. Heidemann and Kujau were tried for defrauding Gruner and Jahr of 9 million Deutschmark, with about a third of that shared between the two of them, while the rest remains unaccounted for.

Both were convicted, with Heidemann sentenced to four years and eight months in prison, while Kujau received four years and six months. The scandal cost several editors, writers and historians their careers, including Heidemann, who was reported to be living in poverty as of 2008.

Surprisingly, Kujau bounced back rather well, finding a lucrative new career as an artist using his newfound notoriety, replicating famous paintings and signing them with his own name (see image above). He died in 2000. In life, he forged a staggering 62 volumes of Hitler's personal diaries.

Faking Hitler is available to stream on All 4 from Friday 24th February 2023. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on.

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