Podcaster, author and comedian Andrew Hunter Murray revisits one of the most extraordinary media deceptions of the 20th century in a new ten-part series from The History Podcast, The Hitler Diaries Scandal, available on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio 4 from Monday 14 September.
On 25 April 1983, the German magazine Stern announced it had discovered Adolf Hitler's long-lost diaries. Authenticated by leading British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, and published in the UK in The Sunday Times, the documents appeared set to rewrite history.
The story was irresistible. The diaries had supposedly been rescued from the wreckage of a plane fleeing Hitler's Berlin bunker in the final days of the Second World War, hidden for decades in East Germany, and smuggled across the Iron Curtain at enormous risk.
Journalist Gerd Heidemann, nicknamed ‘the bloodhound’ by colleagues at Stern, spent years pursuing the sensational scoop, and investing millions of Deutschmarks to acquire volume after volume. But all was not as it seemed.
Andrew Hunter Murray retraces the twists and turns of the scandal that captivated the world's media, damaged reputations and exposed a remarkable willingness to believe what many wanted to be true.
Across ten episodes, Andrew speaks to people who found themselves at the centre of the chaos to reconstruct a story populated by larger-than-life characters - an ambitious reporter chasing the scoop of a lifetime, a charismatic forger operating from suburban Germany, powerful media executives dazzled by the promise of a world exclusive, and respected experts placed under intense pressure to deliver answers.
The series also uncovers rarely heard recordings connected to the story, including conversations recorded aboard Hermann Göring's former yacht, offering fresh insights into the shadowy world of Nazi memorabilia collecting that helped fuel the fraud.
Exploring a murky underworld of obsession, greed and historical fascination, Murray asks how one skilled forger operating from a basement workshop managed to deceive some of the world's most experienced journalists, historians and publishers.
More than forty years on, The Hitler Diaries Scandal resonates in a world grappling with misinformation, conspiracy theories and the challenge of separating fact from fiction.
Andrew Hunter Murray said: "The Hitler Diaries affair has everything - forgery, ambition, delusion, big money, Nazis, a media frenzy and some truly astonishing characters. The more I dug into the story, the more unbelievable it became. It's a perfect example of how any of us can be fooled by a blatant lie, as long as we want to believe it, and I think it has a lot of lessons for us today.”
The Hitler Diaries Scandal is available on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds from Monday 14 September.
