Forged Hitler diary fetches 6,500 euros in auction

Haaretz ^ | April 24, 2004 | Reuters

[yonif]

BERLIN - A volume of the forged diaries of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler which fooled the world in 1983 fetched 6,500 euros in a Berlin auction on Friday.

Forger, painter and military antiques dealer Konrad Kujau, who died in 2000, copied Hitler's handwriting and sold 60 volumes of the diary to Stern magazine for about $5 million.

The manuscript is the last in the series, with the final entry dated April 30, 1945, the day Hitler committed suicide with Eva Braun in his bunker as the Third Reich collapsed.

The starting price was 5,000 euros, the estimate 7,000 euros, a spokesman of the auction house Jeschke, Greve i Hauff said. He declined to identify the buyer, but said: "It stayed in Germany."

The book was never handed over to the magazine and comes from Kujau's estate.

In 1983, Stern thought it had landed the biggest scoop in publishing history after reporter Gerd Heidemann fell for the hoax. Kujau claimed he had located the diaries in Communist East Germany and said he could smuggle them into the West.

Included with the auctioned volume is a hand-written document - also forged - certifying the authenticity of the writings, "signed" by Hitler and several other top Nazis.

[Free_at_last_-2001]

Entitled ‘living history’??

[My2Cents]

June 6, 1944 --
Dear Diary,
My plans to hold France took a turn for the worse today. Oh well...No big loss.

[PLMerite]

I remember this when it happened. There was supposedly praise for Chamberlain ("Peace in our time"), and I always wondered if the forgery wasn't "isnpired" by the Soviets who were busy underwriting the "peace movement" against U.S. cruise missiles in Europe at the time.

[Wilhelm Tell]

April 29, 1945
Dear Diary,
I have the enemy surrounded!

[antaresequity]

fetched 6,500 euros in a Berlin auction on Friday

7670.00 yankee bucks...

So the price is unremarkable...Then why does the news wire feed this meaningless stat?

[WorkingClassFilth]

I assume the buyer payed in counterfeit Euros?

[clyde asbury]

I remember when this happened, too. Saturday Night Live did a scene about it:

"Only two days before we invade - and I get a pimple!

[ChadGore]

Do you think he wrote about this guy ?

[mass55th]

Dear Diary:

It's all George W. Bush's fault!

Love, Addie.

[My2Cents]

...P.S. I am sending my adopted son, Berlin Bob, off to Iraq for safety, just in case.

[My2Cents]

Dear Diary,
Met the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem today. Great humanitarian. He said my vision of ethnic purity has inspired him and his people. BTW, he has nice taste in hats.
As always,
AH