Hitler's Diaries

Kenneth Rendell, a dealer in historical documents who helped unmask the Hitler diaries, called them "bad forgeries but a great hoax." The hoax began in 1981, when a reporter for the German magazine Stern caught wind of diaries recovered from a Nazi plane crash and stowed away for decades. Over 50 journals, purportedly handwritten by Hitler, revealed a kinder, gentler dictator whose "final solution" to the "Jewish problem" was not genocide but merely the deportation of Jews.

Stern hired experts to authenticate the diaries but gave them only a few select pages to review. Even worse, many of the examples of "genuine" Hitler documents Stern provided for comparison were from the same dealer who had proffered the diaries. They were, of course, all in the same hand—that of the forger.

When Stern broke the story of the diaries in late April of 1983, it triggered banner headlines around the world. But they were soon revealed as fakes. At his trial, forger Konrad Kujau, a German dealer in military memorabilia, openly admitted guilt and gladly signed Hitler "autographs" for the crowd.