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Bertelsmann has announced it will hand over the forged “Hitler Diaries", whose publication in G+J’s Stern magazine in 1983 triggered one of the biggest media scandals in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, to the country’s Federal Archives.
The announcement was made ahead of a conference on “The History of Stern and Its Formative Personages”, hosted by Munich’s Institute of Contemporary History (IfZ) in Berlin and commencing today (24th April 2023).
In August 2022, Bertelsmann commissioned the IfZ to conduct an independent scientific review of the history of Stern magazine. In February of this year, the research contract was extended to include an investigation into the handling of the forged “Hitler Diaries” – a 60-volume set of diaries falsely attributed to Adolf Hitler.
Bertelsmann chairman and c.e.o. Thomas Rabe commented: “The handover of the forged ‘Hitler Diaries’ to the Federal Archives guarantees that this source material from the history of the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1980s will be professionally secured and usable.
“For us – following the commissioning of the IfZ – it represents another step in an approach to corporate history that strives for transparency, scholarship and independence. We are pleased that the Federal Archive, which 40 years ago was able to prove beyond doubt that the diaries were a fake, will now take over their archiving as well."
Professor Dr Michael Hollmann, president of the Federal Archives, added: “The forged ‘Hitler Diaries’ are in good hands in the Federal Archives as peculiar testimonies to contemporary German history. They show a brazen attempt to give the brutal crimes of National Socialism a human veneer, which resonated with society in the 1980s. After their transfer, the documents will be stored in perpetuity in the Federal Republic of Germany section at the Koblenz site and made accessible as part of our legal mandate.”
The Institute of Contemporary History is investigating the period from the founding of Stern by Henri Nannen in 1948 to his departure in 1983 on behalf of Bertelsmann. With this analysis, Bertelsmann seeks to make "an objective, scientific and lasting contribution" to the recently resurgent discussion about longtime Stern editor-in-chief Henri Nannen (1913–1996). The research period and subject matter were extended to include a review of the handling of the forged “Hitler Diaries”, so as to obtain as objective a picture as possible of how and why it was possible for the fakes to be published.
As part of the IfZ research project, Bertelsmann is transferring all historically relevant documents from Gruner + Jahr, or Stern to the corporate archives in Gütersloh. The only exception are the forged “Hitler Diaries,” which following an archival inventory will be transferred to the Federal Archive in 2023 as “special documents on contemporary history” and made usable there.