The fake diary of Adolf Hitler published in the form of notebooks in Stern magazine has been handed over to the German Federal Archives, where it will be now available to the general public for consultation forty years after its publication.
This was announced on Monday by Bertelsmann Group, owner of Stern magazine, and the German authorities.
In 1983, Stern magazine published Adolf Hitler’s alleged diary, which was quickly revealed to be a fake. It was one of the biggest media scandals to hit West Germany. The journalist who discovered the notebooks and the forger, Konrad Kujau, were convicted.
According to the president of the Federal Archives, Michael Hollmann, the diary is “a shameless attempt to give the brutal crimes of the Nazi regime a veneer of humanity that resonated with society in the 1980s.” The documents will be preserved in perpetuity in Koblenz and made accessible under the archive’s legal mandate.
