“Hitler Diaries” published online

It was possible to make the “Hitler Diaries” readable and also researchable, the NDR stated in a broadcast on Thursday at 6 p.m. that they were published on the Internet. Using artificial intelligence (AI), it was possible to translate Hitler’s forged handwriting into a transcription. “This makes it fully clear for the first time with what intent the forgeries were written and how the star was willing to reinterpret and trivialize Nazi history,” the newspaper said. The project is based on copies, the original parts of the “diaries” are locked in the vault of the German media company Gruner + Jahr.

Well-founded scientific support
The political scientist Hajo Funke of the Freie Universität Berlin read the ‘diaries’ and supervised the project scientifically. His finding: “These diaries are an expression of Holocaust denial. That is obvious. They wanted to acquit Hitler of the Nazis’ worst crimes,” said Funke. The historian Heike Görtemaker, who was also part of the scientific advisory board, underlines the massive historical reinterpretation. “The fictional Hitler has nothing to do with violent crimes by the national socialists. He is even the one who tries to keep other of his party members in check,” says Görtemaker.

“Positive Hitler Figure”
The then forger, the German Konrad Kujau, came up with a ‘positive Hitler figure’, says the historian. There are numerous passages in the forgery that would tell how an alleged Hitler campaigned for a benevolent solution for the Jews. The supposed Hitler wrote on July 31, 1941 that the Jews should be persuaded to emigrate quickly or they should be “sought in a safe area in the occupied territories where they could feed and save themselves”. by that point long since radically abandoned by the Nazis.

How evil the diaries work is shown by the January 20, 1942 entry, when the Wannsee Conference took place, which organized the deportation of the entire Jewish population of Europe for extermination. Even on this day, the supposed Hitler paints a totally distorted picture of history: “Wait for the conference reports on the Jewish question. It is imperative that we find a place in the East where these Jews can make a living. ” This historical Holocaust forgery in the diaries dates back to 1945.

Crawled with AI
With the help of the AI, the counterfeits could also be fully searched by keywords for the first time. It turns out that none of the concepts of the Holocaust appear. Buzzwords like “final solution”, “gas chamber” are completely absent.

In 1983, Stern wanted to publish the lies step by step as historical truth. “The history of the Third Reich will have to be largely rewritten,” the magazine’s announcement read at the time.

Caught up in the neo-Nazi scene
According to the NDR, the new investigation proves that the “Hitler Diaries” forger is more deeply involved in a neo-Nazi environment than previously known. In the early 1980s, Konrad Kujau had contact with neo-Nazi leader Michael Kühnen’s environment. According to NDR research, he was closely associated with Kühnen’s press spokesman, Lothar Zaulich. Zaulich was determined after the blown-up scandal in 1983 and 1984. Police found evidence of close collaboration, including a professional photo lab and reproduction workshop. Kujau and Zaulich are said to have perfected Hitler’s handwriting together. However, Zaulich’s direct participation in the forgery of the “Hitler Diaries” could not be proven.

At the request of the NDR, the “Stern” has not commented on the new research. It only emphasized that the originals of the diaries were never released to the public in order to “prevent misuse”. A release of the originals to the German Federal Archives, as promised by the magazine in 2013, has not yet taken place.