Editing Hitler Diaries (section)

==Production and sale of the diaries==

===Production===
[[File:FH AH Hitlers Diaries 01.svg|thumb|upright=.75|alt=Top line: the letters F and H in gothic script. Bottom line: the letters A and H in gothic script|The initials FH (top row) which Kujau mistakenly used on the diary covers, instead of AH (bottom row). Both sets of initials are in Engravers Old English font.]]
It is unclear when Kujau produced his first Hitler diary. Stiefel says Kujau gave him a diary on loan in 1975. Schulze puts the date as 1976, while Kujau says he began in 1978, after a month's practice writing in the old German [[Kurrent|gothic script]] Hitler had used. Kujau used one of a pile of notebooks he had bought cheaply in East Berlin, and attempted to put the letters "AH" in gold on the front—purchasing plastic, Hong Kong-made letters from a department store, he inadvertently used "FH" rather than "AH". He took the black ribbon from a genuine SS document and attached it to the cover using a German army wax seal. For the ink, he bought two bottles of [[Pelikan]] ink—one black, one blue—and mixed them with water so it would flow more easily from the cheap modern pen he used. Finally he sprinkled tea over the pages and bashed the diaries against his desk to give them an aged look. Kujau showed the first volume to Stiefel, who was impressed and thought it a genuine Hitler diary; Stiefel wanted to buy it, but when the forger refused, the pair agreed that the collector could have it on loan.{{sfn|Hamilton|1991|pp=19–20}}{{sfn|Harris|1991|pp=117, 137}}

In June 1979 Stiefel asked a former Nazi Party archivist, August Priesack, to verify the authenticity of the diary, which he subsequently did.{{efn|The previous year Priesack had "authenticated" Stiefel's primary archive, failing to uncover numerous Kujau forgeries.{{sfn|Harris|1991|p=118}}}} Priesack showed the diary to [[Eberhard Jäckel]] of the [[University of Stuttgart]], who also thought the diary to be genuine, and wanted to edit it for publication. News of the diary's existence soon began to filter through to collectors of Hitler memorabilia.{{sfn|Hamilton|1991|pp=21–22}} At the end of 1979 Tiefenthaeler contacted Heidemann to say that Stiefel had shown him around his collection, which included a Hitler diary—the only one Kujau had forged to that point.{{sfn|Harris|1991|pp=84–85}} According to Hamilton "the discovery inflamed Heidemann almost to madness", and he aggressively pressed for what would be a journalistic scoop.{{sfn|Hamilton|1991|p=28}}

Stiefel showed Heidemann the diary in Stuttgart in January 1980, telling him it was from a plane crash in East Germany, although he refused to tell the journalist the name of his source. The collector spoke to Kujau to see if he would meet Heidemann, but the forger repeatedly refused Heidemann's requests for nearly a year.{{sfn|Hamilton|1991|pp=28–29}} Heidemann returned to the ''Stern'' offices and spoke to his editor, but both Koch and Nannen refused to discuss the potential story with him, telling him to work on other features. The only person who was interested was Walde, who worked with Heidemann to find the source of the diaries. Their searches for Kujau proved fruitless, so they looked into the crash. Heidemann, who had read Baur's autobiography, knew of Gundlfinger's flight, and made a connection between Operation Seraglio and the diary; in November 1980 the two journalists travelled to Dresden and located the graves of the flight's crew.{{sfn|Harris|1991|pp=90–91}}

In January 1981 Tiefenthaeler gave Kujau's telephone number to Heidemann, telling the journalist to ask for "Mr Fischer", one of Kujau's aliases. During the subsequent telephone call Kujau told Heidemann that there were 27 volumes of Hitler's diaries, the original manuscript of the unpublished third volume of ''Mein Kampf'', an opera by the young Hitler called {{lang|de|Wieland der Schmied}} (''Wayland the Smith''),{{efn|''[[Wieland der Schmied (libretto)|Wieland der Schmied]]'' was a libretto drafted by [[Richard Wagner]] in 1849–50, based on the legend of [[Wieland the Smith]] from the ''[[Poetic Edda]]''. Originally written for the Paris Opera, the project was abandoned by Wagner and not set to music.{{sfn|Gutman|1971|pp=193–198}}}} numerous letters and unpublished papers, and several of Hitler's paintings—most of which were still in East Germany. Heidemann offered two&nbsp;million DMs for the entire collection and guaranteed secrecy until everything had been brought over the border. Although the pair did not agree to a deal, they agreed to "the foundations of a deal", according to Harris; Kujau's condition was that he would only deal directly with Heidemann, something that suited the journalist as a way of keeping other members of ''Stern'' away from the story.{{sfn|Hamilton|1991|p=33}}{{sfn|Harris|1991|pp=97–99}}

Heidemann and Walde produced a prospectus for internal discussion, outlining what was available for purchase and the costs. The document, signed by Heidemann, finished with a veiled threat: "If our company thinks that the risk is too great, I suggest that I should seek out a publishing company in the United States which could put up the money and ensure that we get the German publication rights." The pair did not show the prospectus to anyone at ''Stern'', but instead presented it to Gruner + Jahr's deputy managing director, Jan Hensmann, and Manfred Fischer; they also requested a 200,000&nbsp;mark deposit from the publisher to secure the rights with Kujau. After a meeting that lasted a little over two hours, and with no recourse to an expert or historian, the deposit was authorised.{{sfn|Evans|1998|pp=48–49}}{{sfn|Harris|1991|pp=99–100}} As soon as the meeting ended, at about 7&nbsp;pm, Heidemann travelled to Stuttgart, with the deposit money, to meet Kujau.{{sfn|Hamilton|1991|pp=33–34}}

===Acquisition===
At that first meeting on 28 January 1981, which lasted over seven hours, Heidemann offered Kujau a deposit of only 100,000&nbsp;DMs to agree the deal, which Kujau did not accept. At a second meeting the following day, the reporter revealed an additional lure he had brought with him: a uniform which he said was Göring's. Kujau tentatively agreed to provide the diaries and told Heidemann that he would call him as soon as he could arrange to receive them from East Germany. As a sign of good faith Heidemann lent the uniform to the forger, to show alongside his collection of other uniforms from the top Nazis; for his part, Kujau gave the journalist a painting purportedly by Hitler. Both the painting and uniform were fakes.{{sfn|Hamilton|1991|pp=34–35}}{{sfn|Harris|1991|pp=133–134}}

[[File:Eberhard Jäckel.jpg|thumb|upright|left|alt=A man in his eighties with thin grey hair, facing to the right of the viewer; he wears a dark suit and tie.|[[Eberhard Jäckel]], the historian who initially thought that Hitler's poems and the diaries were genuine, but changed his mind]]
A week later Kujau met Jäckel and Alex Kuhn in connection with the poems he had forged and sold to Stiefel. These had been published by Jäckel and Kuhn in 1980, but one historian pointed out that one of the poems could not have been produced by Hitler as it had been written by the poet [[Herybert Menzel]].{{sfn|Hamilton|1991|pp=17–18}} Jäckel was concerned that the poem in question had been accompanied by a letter on Nazi party stationery guaranteeing it as a genuine work by Hitler. Many of the other pieces in Stiefel's collection were similarly verified, so doubts began to surface over these, too. Kujau claimed ignorance, saying he was only the middleman, but told them that Heidemann, a reputed journalist, had seen the crash site from which the papers originated; Jäckel advised Stiefel to have his collection forensically examined,{{sfn|Harris|1991|pp=135–136}} and passed 26 suspect poems to the Hamburg district attorney for investigation.{{efn|The Hamburg authorities looked into the problem and reported back in 1983, too late to stop the debacle at ''Stern''.{{sfn|Hamilton|1991|p=42}}}} Gruner + Jahr also knew about the problems with the poems, and that the source had been Kujau, but he assured them that this source had been elsewhere in East Germany, unconnected to the diaries, and they continued with their deal.{{sfn|Hamilton|1991|pp=41–42}}

Ten days after the meeting with Jäckel and Kuhn, Kujau had prepared three further diaries. The contents were copied from a range of books, newspapers and magazines covering Hitler's life. Primary among them was the two-volume work by the historian [[Max Domarus]], {{lang|de|[[Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations|Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen, 1932–45]]}} (''Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations, 1932–45''), which presents Hitler's day-to-day activities. Many of the diary's entries were lists of Nazi party promotions and official engagements. Although Kujau created some personal information about Hitler in the diaries, this was, in the opinion of both Harris and Hamilton, trivia.{{sfn|Harris|1991|pp=167–169}}{{sfn|Hamilton|1991|p=36}} He began working to a schedule of producing three diaries a month. He later stated that he managed to produce one of the volumes in three hours; on a separate occasion he wrote three diaries in three days.{{sfn|Hamilton|1991|p=38}}

On 17 February 1981 Kujau flew to Stuttgart and gave Heidemann the three recently prepared diaries,{{efn|Hamilton puts the delivery of the first diaries in mid-January.{{sfn|Hamilton|1991|p=36}}}} for which Heidemann gave him 35,000&nbsp;DMs. This was a great deal less than the 120,000&nbsp;DMs – 40,000&nbsp;DMs per diary – promised to Kujau in the first meeting, from which Heidemann would also claim a 10% commission; the reduction in funds was explained by a need to get an "expert opinion" on the authenticity of the diaries, and the balance was later paid.{{sfn|Hamilton|1991|pp=36, 44}} The following day the reporter delivered the diaries to Gruner + Jahr. In the subsequent meeting with Walde, Hensmann, Sorge and Fischer, Heidemann and Walde again insisted on secrecy about the project, to ensure their acquisition of all the diaries—it was agreed that not even the editors of ''Stern'' should be told of the discovery. More importantly, according to Harris, it was decided that they should not have the material examined by a forensic scientist or historian until every diary had been obtained. Fischer committed the company to the future purchases by immediately allocating one&nbsp;million DM to the project.{{sfn|Harris|1991|pp=137–139}} The company also set up a dedicated unit to deal with the diaries in an annex to the main Gruner + Jahr offices. It was headed by Walde, and consisted of an assistant, two secretaries and Heidemann. On receipt of the diaries they were photocopied and transcribed from the gothic script into modern German.{{sfn|Hamilton|1991|pp=42–43}} Heidemann also entered into a private contract with Gruner + Jahr, which was kept secret from the company's legal and personnel departments. It contained a deal for him to publish books through the company at a generous royalty rate, and agreed that ten years after publication the original diaries would be given to Heidemann for research purposes, to be handed on to the West German government on his death. He was also to be given a bonus of 300,000&nbsp;DMs for recovering the first eight diaries.{{sfn|Harris|1991|pp=142–143}}

{{Quote box|bgcolor=#CEF6EC|salign=right|quote=
The explosion catastrophe in Reinsdorf is all I need. One ray of hope today was the dedication ceremony of the House of German Art in Munich.<br />
But at any rate I can relax a bit with the architects. E [Eva Braun] now has two little puppies so time does not lie too heavily on her hands.<br />
Must have a word with E. about Göring, too. His attitude towards her just isn't correct.
|source=Diary entry of 30 June 1935, created by Kujau.{{sfn|Harris|1991|p=119}}|align=right|width=33%}}

The delivery of the diaries continued, although there were tensions between Heidemann and Kujau, partly owing to the journalist's "domineering personality and duplicity".{{sfn|Hamilton|1991|p=39}} Because of the nature of the transactions there were no receipts provided by Heidemann to Gruner + Jahr, and the business was conducted by the company on the basis of trust. By the end of February 1981, 680,000&nbsp;DMs had been paid for the diaries, only around half of which was received by Kujau. Heidemann had pocketed the rest, defrauding both his employer and the forger in the process.{{sfn|Harris|1991|pp=147–149}}

Despite the self-imposed restrictions of secrecy placed on the small circle inside Gruner + Jahr, Heidemann could not resist showing one of the volumes to Mohnke, as the entry referred to the [[1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler|SS ''Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler'']], Mohnke's former regiment. Heidemann read out three entries from the diaries—from 15, 17 and 18 March—which concerned visits made by Hitler to the regiment while in the [[Lichterfelde (Berlin)|Lichterfelde]] and Friesenstraße barracks. Mohnke informed him that the entries were inaccurate, saying that the Lichterfelde barracks were not occupied by the troops on that date, that the regimental name used in the diary was introduced much later, and that so far as he knew Hitler never visited the Friesenstraße barracks. Heidemann was unmoved by his friend's revelations, and posited that Hitler had probably written what he was planning to do, not what he had done. Harris suggests that this showed that the journalist "had long ceased operating on a rational wavelength about the diaries".{{sfn|Harris|1991|pp=151–152}}

The circle of those at Gruner + Jahr who knew about the diaries grew in May 1981 when Fischer decided to look into the complicated copyright circumstances surrounding Hitler's property.{{efn|Harris describes how "determining ownership of Hitler's estate was complex, indeed almost impossible". In 1948 the [[State of Bavaria]] had seized all Hitler's property, including 5&nbsp;million DMs due as royalties on ''Mein Kampf'', and declared his will invalid. In 1951 they seized personal objects bequeathed by the German leader to stop their sale, but had been unable to stop the publication of {{lang|de|[[Hitler's Table Talk|Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier]]}} (''Hitler's Table Talk'') because their rights only covered previously published material. Further complications arose from private deals made by individual members of the Hitler family.{{sfn|Harris|1991|p=158}}}} He discussed the matter with the company's legal advisor, Andreas Ruppert, who advised speaking to [[Werner Maser]], a historian who acted as a trustee on such matters to the [[Hitler family]].{{sfn|Harris|1991|pp=157–158}} Heidemann visited Maser in June 1981 and came to a deal that enabled the journalist and ''Stern'', for a payment of 20,000&nbsp;DMs, to retain "the rights to all the discovered or purchased documents or notes in the hand of Adolf Hitler&nbsp;... which have so far not yet been published".{{sfn|Harris|1991|p=159}}

{{Quote box|bgcolor=#CEF6EC|salign=right|title=Quotes from the diaries|quote=
* "The English are driving me crazy—should I let them escape [from Dunkirk], or not? How is this Churchill reacting?"
* "This man Bormann has become indispensable to me. If I had had five Bormanns, I would not be sitting here now [in the Berlin bunker]."
* "[Himmler is] living in another world—an ancient Germanic fantasy world. I'm beginning to think he's out of his mind."
* "How on earth does Stalin manage it? Always imagined that he had no officers left, but he did the right thing [in purging the officer corps]. A new command structure in the Wehrmacht is what we need, too."
|source=Diary entries created by Kujau and prominently used by ''[[Newsweek]]''{{Thinsp}}<ref name="NW: Launch" />|align=left|width=33%}}

After twelve diaries had been delivered to Gruner + Jahr, Heidemann informed his employers that the price had risen from 85,000&nbsp;DMs to 100,000&nbsp;DMs per diary; the reason given by Heidemann was that the East German general smuggling the diaries was now having to bribe more people. The additional money was retained by Heidemann and not passed on to Kujau. The journalist was starting to lead a profligate lifestyle on his illicit profits, including two new cars (a BMW convertible and a Porsche, for a combined total of 58,000&nbsp;DMs), renting two new flats on Hamburg's exclusive [[Elbchaussee]] and jewellery. He also spent considerable sums acquiring new Nazi memorabilia. Some were genuine, such as Wolff's SS honour dagger; others were purchased from Kujau, including 300 forged oil paintings, drawings and sketches Kujau claimed were by Hitler. Other items, carrying notes by Kujau attesting to their authenticity, included a gun described as that used by Hitler to commit suicide, and a flag identified as the {{lang|de|[[Blutfahne]]}} ("Blood Flag"), carried in Hitler's failed [[Beer Hall Putsch|Munich Beer Hall Putsch]] of 1923, and stained by the blood of Nazis shot by police.{{sfn|Harris|1991|pp=159–161}}

The purchases of the diaries continued throughout mid to late 1981: Gruner + Jahr gave Heidemann 345,000&nbsp;DMs on 29 July, and a further 220,000&nbsp;DMs a week later, which brought the total up to 1.81&nbsp;million&nbsp;DMs since the start of the year. This sum had purchased 18 diaries for the company. Schulte-Hillen, the new managing director, signed an authorisation for a further million DMs for future purchases.{{sfn|Harris|1991|pp=165–166}} Just over two weeks later he signed a further authorisation for 600,000&nbsp;DMs after Heidemann told him that the cost of the diaries had now risen to 200,000&nbsp;DMs each; Heidemann also passed on the news that there were more than 27 diaries.{{sfn|Harris|1991|pp=133–134}}

In mid-December 1982 the author and future [[Holocaust denial|Holocaust denier]] [[David Irving]] was also involved in tracking the existence of diaries written by Hitler.{{efn|In 2000 Irving, a hunter of missing documents relating to Nazi history,{{sfn|Harris|1991|p=33}} sued the American historian [[Deborah Lipstadt]] and [[Penguin Books]] for libel, after Lipstadt published ''[[Denying the Holocaust]]'', in which she called Irving a [[Holocaust denial|Holocaust denier]]. Finding for the defendants, the court found that Irving was an active Holocaust denier, [[antisemitism|anti-Semite]] and [[racism|racist]].<ref name="Guardian ruling" /> In 2006 Irving was imprisoned in Austria for denying the Holocaust took place.<ref name="BBC: Irving jailed" />}} Priesack had previously told Irving of the existence of one of the diaries with a collector in Stuttgart. In a visit to Priesack to assess his collection of Nazi documents, Irving found out Stiefel's phone number, from which he worked out the address; he also obtained photocopies of some of the diary pages from Priesack. Irving visited Stiefel unannounced and tried to find out the name of the source, but the collector misled him as to the origin. Irving examined Priesack's photocopies and saw several problems, including spelling mistakes and the change in writing style between certain words.{{sfn|Harris|1991|pp=220–222}}{{efn|Stiefel retained his diary, and refused to sell it back to Kujau. In order to ensure he sold a full set of diaries to Heidemann, Kujau forged a second diary to cover the volume. Heidemann knew this was a second version, and still wanted the original. He offered 15,000 DMs for the diary, and Stiefel finally agreed to the sale, which ensured that Heidemann had two diaries for the period. Heidemann requested a new title for the front page—"Notes for the working team of the party". When he delivered the second volume to ''Stern''{{'}}s offices, he explained its existence by saying that Hitler occasionally wrote two volumes: one for himself and one for the party.{{sfn|Hamilton|1991|p=47}}}}