Former ‘Stern’ reporter Gerd Heidemann has died at the age of 93. In 1983 he presented the fake ‘Hitler Diaries’.
According to “Stern,” the former magazine reporter died on December 9 in a hospital in Hamburg.
Reporter fell for counterfeiters
In April 1983, ‘Stern’ announced a sensation. The magazine published alleged diaries of dictator Adolf Hitler, whom Heidemann claimed to have tracked down. Now “the biography of the dictator and thus the history of the Nazi state must be largely rewritten,” it was said at the time. However, it soon turned out that the data was false. Heidemann had fallen for the forger Konrad Kujau, who had been producing the alleged diaries himself for months.
Heidemann had purchased the diaries on behalf of his publisher Gruner+Jahr for 9.3 million marks in cash. They were supposed to be published gradually, which stopped happening after the fake came to light. Eleven days after ‘Stern’ presented his sensational find, the fake was exposed and ‘Stern’ was embarrassed.
Kimofilm was dedicated to the scandal
A film-worthy story, which Helmut Dietl also made into a film under the title “Schtonk”.
In 1985, Heidemann was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison for fraud for allegedly smuggling two million marks out of the sensational venture. Decades later, he insisted that he had not embezzled any money. Kujau was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for the enormous fraud, of which he served three. He eventually died in mid-September 2000.
Source: Krone
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