Item — HN Reader

Any time something of popular historical interest like this pops up I think about that.

If you've not read it then Robert Harris's (factual) book about the affair is entertaining, not least because such a broad sweep of dislikeable characters were undone by greed and folly!

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The whole affair was bizarre. At one point Kujau, the author of the fake diaries, ran out of ideas and let Hitler complain about his flatulence.

There is also a very funny German movie about it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schtonk!) The director later said that he intentionally omitted some facts about the real scandal because the audience would find it too far fetched.

I think my favourite aspect of the tale (at least as Harris tells it) is that Kujau was such a bad forger, and the recipients wanted it all to be true so badly that they skipped several opportunities to actually check!

I shall see if I can find Schtonk! with subtitles, sounds up my alley.

Yes! Like when Kujau couldn't get the letter A, so he went with "FH" instead of "AH" for the cover initials. Heidemann convinced the people at Stern that it surely stands for "Führer Hitler" :-D

Schtonk! does a really great job at satirizing the Führerkult that was still very much present in large parts of German society.