The diary it read April 25, 1983. Two hundred journalists from all over the world and twenty-seven TV crews had flocked to the offices of the publishing house Gruner + Jahr in the center of Hamburg for a historic announcement: The magazine Stern, which had gained worldwide fame in the 70s with its amazing quality photo reports , would begin publishing “Adolf Hitler’s diaries” in succession. Entire volumes were piled up in front of astonished journalists.

Editor-in-chief Gerd Heidemann couldn’t get enough of the photographers’ flashes, while editor-in-chief Peter Koch will be remembered for his statement: “The history of the Third Reich should to be rewritten from scratch, in a large part of it”. The first publication took place on April 28, 1983. Stern’s management did not fail to increase the circulation by 400,000 sheets to meet the demand, but also to raise the price of the issue by 50 pfennig (subdivision of the mark, an amount equal to today’s 25 cents ).

From surprise to condemnation

But the first impression was rather disappointing. Instead of momentous revelations that would “rewrite history,” Stern’s readers read platitudes and gossip about Eva Brown “who demanded free tickets to the 1936 Olympics, causing irritation” or Hitler’s salacious confessions about “those new pills that cause annoying gas” and the like. Is something wrong? Or are Stern’s staffers taking it slow and saving the shocking revelations for later?

Just 12 days after the first publication, the German Criminal Investigation Agency (BKA) publishes a memorandum, from which it appears that the so-called “Hitler diaries” they are fake. A sure indication of this is the quality of the paper, which appeared in Germany in the 50s and it did not exist during the Nazi regime. The scandal is unprecedented. The Prosecutor’s Office begins an investigation against Gerd Heidemann, but also against the forger Konrad Kujau. Both will be sentenced to several years in prison. Today Heidemann lives penniless in Hamburg, while Kujau died of cancer in 2000. As for Stern, he has yet to recover from the blow.

At the limits of art

The painter and artist Konrad Kujau, par excellence responsible for the forgery, was a special case. He had excelled for years at similar scams, concocting and selling to collectors supposedly rare relics of the Nazi regime. Through these circles he met Stern’s journalist, who also had a penchant for Third Reich trinkets and memorabilia.

As soon as Stern’s management found out about Hitler’s “diaries”, they said they were willing to pay the amount of two million German marks to obtain them. Prominent historians, criminologists and state archivists compared the diaries with other Hitler “writings” and concluded that it is genuine. They did not realize, unfortunately, that some of the “writings” they used as a model had also been forged by the prolific Kuyau.

Forger with… guarantee of authenticity

The surreal epilogue is that Cuiau, after his release from prison, opened a gallery in Berlin, in which he sold his original works, but also “authentic forgeries”, by Gustav Klimt for example. This is not prohibited as long as the forger declares in the first place that he is a forger or rather a copyist. But Kuyau again engaged the justice system when, in 1999, he was accused of illegal carrying of weapons. In fact, he had a gun license, but it was… fake.

“Genuine forgeries” however, Cuiau’s student, Gabriele Sauer, has also been selling since 2003 in her own gallery in Stuttgart. Copies of works by Klimt, Cézanne and Gauguin signed “Konrad Kouyau” have been snapped up on E-Bay. But what happens when subordinate counterfeiters attempt to counterfeit the legitimate copyist? Even that happened.

Suddenly, Gabriele Sauer discovered that Petra Cuiau, the deceased’s niece, is also selling Konrad Cuiau’s works on the market, and indeed at modest prices starting at 500 euros. But they were fake misprints because a genuine Cuiau can be a fake Gauguin, but it definitely “catch” a few thousand euros at the market. Anyway, Ms. Sauer went to court and Ms. Cuiau was sentenced to prison, but with a suspended sentence and the obligation to provide 150 hours of community service.