Forty years after the publication of the forged Hitler diaries in Germany’s Stern magazine, they will be handed over to the Federal Archives later this year and made accessible there.
The move was announced jointly by the Bertelsmann publishing group and the German authorities on Monday.
In 1983, the magazine of the Hamburg publishing house Gruner + Jahr published what were purported to be the diaries of Adolf Hitler. They were proven to be forgeries a few days later. It was one of the biggest media scandals of the German Federal Republic.
Federal Archive President Michael Hollmann said the forged diaries showed a “brazen attempt to give the brutal crimes of National Socialism a human veneer that resonated with society in the 1980s.”
Accordingly, the documents will be kept at the Koblenz site in perpetuity and made accessible as part of the archive’s legal mandate.
The Institute of Contemporary History (IfZ) is also examining the forged diaries. Bertelsmann says it wants to obtain as objective a picture as possible of how and why it was possible for the forgeries to be published.
Forty years after the publication of the forged Hitler diaries in Stern magazine, the documents will be transferred to the Federal Archives in Germany later this year. The Bertelsmann publishing group and German authorities announced this move on Monday.
First published by Gruner + Jahr in 1983, the diaries were soon proven to be forgeries, resulting in one of Germany's biggest media scandals. Federal Archive President Michael Hollmann said the forged documents attempted to humanize the brutal crimes of National Socialism.
The diaries will be kept at the Koblenz site and made accessible as part of the archive's mandate. The Institute of Contemporary History (IfZ) will also examine these documents, with Bertelsmann aiming to understand how and why the forgeries were published.
