Adolf Hilter is a contented man. The war in the west has only been going on for a few days, but his troops are advancing smoothly (sucky) through the Netherlands and Belgium. In the morning of May 12, 1940, he writes in his diary: “More and more success reports are coming in. Grebben line and Peel position broken. In the north of Holland, German troops have occupied the province of Groningen. Harlingen and the east coast of the Zuiderzee have been reached.”
Anyone who knows anything about the May days in 1940 will see that something is not right with this note. The Peel-Raamstelling already fell on 10 May, while the Grebben Line was not breached until later on the 12th. And the Germans did not reach the Afsluitdijk until the afternoon of 12 May. The question arises: could Adolf Hitler possibly see into the future?
No, of course. And he never kept a diary. The above passage is from the forged diaries of the dictator who passed through on April 25, 1983 Sternjournalist Gerd Heidemann were presented to the world. The news made the front pages everywhere, including that of NRC Handelsbladbut it soon became clear that this was the journalistic blunder of the century.
9.3 million Deutsche Mark
The diaries were forged by Konrad Kujau, a dealer in Nazi memorabilia, who sold them for DM 9.3 million. Stern had sold. The diaries disappeared in the safe of publisher Gruner + Jahr, but journalists from the Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) have now made the 62 handwritten volumes readable and searchable by a computer. On Thursday they put ‘Hitler’s diaries’ online.
What is immediately noticeable is the incredible dullness of the text. It is inconceivable that the man who produces the frothy prose of My Kampf composed such a dry diary would have kept. ‘Hitler’ is often limited to summaries of the situation at the front, with the occasional sneer at British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
These diaries were supposed to erase the Holocaust
And so there are quite a few errors in it. Those who search for the terms ‘Niederlande’ and ‘Holland’ will come across the above passage from the morning of 12 May. Things also go wrong with the bombing of Rotterdam. ‘Hitler’ writes that the May 14 morning meeting mentions the attack, including the fact that it was a mistake because of a miscommunication surrounding an ultimatum. However, the bombing did not take place until half past two, while the ultimatum expired at half past four. In the morning of 14 May, therefore, the attack could not have been a topic of discussion.
It is clear that forger Kujau was more concerned with imitating Hitler’s handwriting as closely as possible than with the historical accuracy of what he had the Fuhrer write. After the diaries were revealed, doubts quickly arose about the authenticity of his work. Chemical analysis of the paper on which the diaries were written quickly put an end to this. The paper was from after the war.
Scandal
With that finding, Kujau’s house of cards collapsed. The scandal not only swallowed him, but also Heidemann, who would have loved to have a scope. Kujau and Heidemann were sentenced to 4.5 years in prison in 1985, partly because the journalist had part of the money Stern paid for the diaries in his own pocket.
The reputation of the English historian and Hitler connoisseur Hugh Trevor-Roper also suffered a serious blow. He had been lied to about the age of the paper and heard a fabricated story about how the diaries had been rescued from a plane wreck, then declared them to be real. When he came back to that during the press conference, the damage had already been done.
The journalists of the NDR who are now revealing the diaries, write that at the time insufficient attention was paid to the fact that Kujau’s work exonerated Hitler from involvement in the Holocaust – if there had been a Holocaust at all. Kujau had ties to neo-Nazis, important clientele for those selling Third Reich paraphernalia, and is said to have adopted from them the denial of the murder of the Jews.
In several places in the diary ‘Hitler’ writes that he is busy finding a place to house European Jewry. On May 23, 1943, he notes: “I am concerned about our Jewish problem. According to the latest reports, nobody wants them.” This was at a time when industrial murder in extermination camps had been going on for years. The conclusion of the NDR researchers is therefore: “These diaries were supposed to erase the Holocaust.”