40 years after the publication of the forged Hitler diaries in the “Stern”, they will be handed over to the German Federal Archives in the course of the year and made accessible there. The Bertelsmann Group and the authority announced this together today.
In 1983 the magazine of the Hamburg publishing house Gruner + Jahr published what were supposed to be Adolf Hitler’s diaries, which only a few days later turned out to be forgeries. It was one of the biggest media scandals in Germany.
Bundesarchiv President Michael Hollmann said the forged diaries showed a “brazen attempt to give a human touch to the brutal crimes of National Socialism that resonated in society in the 1980s”. The documents are stored permanently at the Koblenz site and made accessible within the framework of the statutory mandate.
“Star” is also examined
The Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) is also examining the forged diaries. Bertelsmann wants to get as objective a picture as possible of how and why it was published.
On behalf of Bertelsmann – the “Stern” is part of the company portfolio – the researchers are also investigating the period from the founding of the magazine by Henri Nannen in 1948 to his departure in 1983. In May 2022, the debate about the role of the ex-” Stern” editor-in-chief and magazine initiator Nannen was rekindled during the Nazi era. The trigger was a contribution to the research format “STRG_F” by the public ARD broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR). It was about anti-Semitic leaflets in World War II. A connection to Nannen was established in the post.
