Selling Hitler

by Robert Harris

  I don’t want to end up as Hitler’s publisher. I would have thought the public was as sick of it as I am. But they are not. The booksellers always want more. Hitler sells. Nazis sell. Swastikas sell – and they sell better and better. It’s the swastika on the cover that gets them. Nobody can out-swastika us. I’ve even thought of putting one on our vegetable cook book because Hitler was a vegetarian.

  On the wall of his office, Mayer hung a large picture of himself with a small Hitler moustache and the caption ‘Springtime For Mayer’.

  If this was the market for what were basically retreads of material already seen, the marketing possibilities of Adolf Hitler’s secret diaries were clearly stupendous. Gruner and Jahr was well placed to exploit it. The company owned a string of successful West German magazines, including Stern and Geo. It had outlets in Spain, France and the United States (where it owned Parents and Young Miss). Gruner and Jahr had a turnover of almost half a billion dollars and controlled a total of twenty periodicals across the world.

  Since 1972, three-quarters of the company’s shares had been held by the West German multinational, Bertelsmann AG, the country’s largest publishing group. Founded in 1835 to produce religious tracts, by 1981 the company had one hundred and eighty subsidiaries operating in twenty-five countries. In America it owned such well-known organizations as Bantam Books and Arista Records. Once this formidable publishing and marketing machine was thrown behind the Hitler diaries, profits could be expected which would easily recoup Fischer’s initial investment of 2.5 million marks.

  Hitler was going to make everybody rich, no one more so than Gerd Heidemann. Fischer accepted that the reporter had a special claim to the diaries project. He had pursued it in the face of outright opposition from the Stern editors. He was the only person with whom the supplier of the diaries would deal. Heidemann had already talked vaguely of taking over the project for himself. He could go into partnership with an American publisher. He could sell everything and try to finance the project himself. He could take up those job offers he claimed to have received from Bunte and Quick. He had even mentioned a Dutch oil millionaire named Heeremann, a former member of the SS, who was prepared to put up i million marks towards the purchase of the diaries, providing they proved that Hitler knew nothing of the extermination of the Jews. Fischer was understandably anxious to conclude an agreement with Heidemann. Immediately after the receipt of the first diaries negotiations began, and five days later, on 23 February, the two men signed a contract. Such was the secrecy of the project, the company’s legal department was not told what was happening. Wilfried Sorge personally drafted the agreement in accordance with suggestions from Heidemann.

  The first part of the contract set out the reporter’s obligations:

  The author [Heidemann] will obtain for the publishing company from East Germany the original manuscripts of the diaries of Adolf Hitler from the years 1933 to 1945 as well as the handwritten manuscript of the third volume of Mein Kampf. The publishing company will place at the author’s disposal for the obtaining of these manuscripts the sum of 85,000 marks per volume and 200,000 marks for Mein Kampf.

  The author will be of assistance to the publishing company in reaching a settlement with the heirs of Adolf Hitler. He will attempt to obtain the ownership of the rights and transfer them to the company. The company will compensate the heirs through the author.

  Together with Dr Thomas Walde, the author will work on the manuscript for a Stern series and for one, or perhaps several, Stern books…. Other collaborators (for example, historians) will be engaged only with the agreement of the authors.

  The authors give the company exclusive and unlimited publishing rights to this material in all its forms. They give over all their copyright and further rights to the publishing company. The publishing company will be able to decide to whom it will syndicate the material. The company will only transfer the rights to a third party for a fee, and any alterations to the material which make it substantially different to the original will require the approval of the authors.

  The authors will not be given any special fees for the production of the Stern series. Stern will receive rights to the series for nothing. In return, it will release the authors for two years from their usual editorial work. Those two years will commence when all the original volumes have been obtained.

  Next came details of his reward:

  For the Stern books, the author will receive a royalty of 6 per cent of the cover price of every volume sold up to 10,000 copies. For sales in excess of 10,000 copies, up to a total of 50,000, the royalty will rise to 7.2 per cent. For sales above 50,000 copies, the royalty increases to 9 per cent.

  As a share of the syndication sales made by the company, Heidemann will receive 36 per cent; Walde, 24 per cent.

  Ten years after the start of publication, the company will return the original manuscripts to the author. When he dies, the author will bequeath them to the Federal Government. Before the expiry of the ten year deadline, the author will be allowed to use the material for his own researches….

  As an advance against royalties, when eight volumes of the Hitler diaries have been delivered, the author will receive 300,000 marks….

  If neither the publication of the books nor the syndication of the material covers the advance, nor the sale of the original material, the author will repay the difference within a year from the time when the last payment was made.

  If for any reason the publishing company is prevented from publishing the work, it will be entitled to withdraw from this contract. In that case, all the payments due to the author will fall through, and if the author publishes the work with another company, he will be obliged to pay the money back.

  Despite the caveat contained in the final two clauses, this contract represented a substantial victory for Heidemann. It was inconceivable that if the diaries were genuine they would fail to cover the cost of his advance. Even if Stern never published the material, Heidemann could keep the money, unless he took the diaries elsewhere: in other words, even if they were forged, Heidemann would not be obliged to pay back the advance. That fact alone gives some indication of the management’s complete faith that the diaries were genuine. Assuming publication went ahead, the potential profit to Heidemann was enormous. Worldwide sales of Hitler’s diaries would exceed 50,000 copies by a factor of ten, perhaps a hundred; the royalties that would yield, coupled with a third of world syndication rights, would make Heidemann financially secure for the rest of his life. To have such a golden vision of the future shimmering on the horizon would tend to make the most sceptical journalist incline to a belief in the diaries’ authenticity. Heidemann was not one of the profession’s natural sceptics. He had already shown himself capable of believing any amount of rubbish about the Third Reich. It is scarcely surprising that his attitude to the diaries from now on was one of blind faith. Gruner and Jahr had given the one man they had to trust an overwhelming financial incentive to deceive himself – and them.

  TWELVE

  HEIDEMANN’S ADVANCE OF 300,000 marks was not due to be paid to him until he had delivered another five diaries. But Manfred Fischer knew of Heidemann’s chronic financial difficulties (the reporter had taken out yet another company loan two months previously for 28,500 marks) and as a gesture of good faith he arranged to have the money paid into Heidemann’s account the day after the conclusion of their agreement, Tuesday 24 February.

  The following day, Heidemann rang Sorge to tell him that a new shipment of the diaries had arrived. He needed 480,000 marks. Sorge walked along the corridor to the office of Peter Kuehsel, the finance director, and asked for authorization to withdraw the money.

  Kuehsel, a new arrival at Gruner and Jahr, must have wondered what sort of company he had joined. A month ago he had been ordered to find 200,000 marks in cash after the banks had shut; he had driven to the airport, stashed the money into a suitcase like a cashier for a Mafia family; then he had watched as Heidemann headed off into the night wit
h it. Now he was supposed to hand over another 480,000 in cash with no explanation as to what it was for. He was an accountant. It offended his sense of business propriety. He sought out Manfred Fischer. ‘I asked Dr Fischer what the money was for and why payments of this size had to be made in cash,’ he recalled. ‘I asked in order that I could make a proper entry in the company’s accounts.’ Fischer realized that the circle of the initiated would have to be widened from five to six. ‘He swore me to secrecy,’ said Kuehsel, ‘and told me that Herr Heidemann was on the trail of the Hitler diaries.’ Fischer warned Kuehsel that in all he would probably be called upon to hand over about 3 million marks. Kuehsel stared at his managing director in astonishment. ‘I said it was a lot of money.’ Fischer then asked him for some technical advice and the two men ‘discussed how it could be dealt with from the point of view of tax’.

  When Sorge had received the authorization, he drove to the main Deutsche Bank in (appropriately) Adolphsplatz. The money, in 500- and 1000-mark notes was packed into a suitcase and given to Heidemann.

  This established a routine which was to last for more than two years. Heidemann would hear from Kujau that a new consignment of books was ready for collection. He would then inform Sorge who would in turn approach Kuehsel. According to the accountant:

  Herr Sorge would tell me two days beforehand when money was to be handed out to Heidemann and how much was needed. I then made contact with the main branch of the Deutsche Bank in Adolphsplatz and asked them that same day to make arrangements to provide the money. Sometimes Sorge or sometimes Heidemann would decide the denominations of the notes. As far as I remember, it was mainly 500-mark notes; sometimes 1000-mark.

  When Heidemann returned from Stuttgart with the new diaries he would make two photocopies on a machine installed in his private apartment, one for himself and one for the Stern history department. Crucial to the development of the whole affair was the fact that Heidemann was one of the few people at Stern who could decipher the handwriting and make sense of the obsolescent script in which they were written – a type of Gothic composition no longer taught in German schools. For most of those in the diaries’ circle, Heidemann effectively became the Custodian of the Writ, the medium through whom the oracle of the diaries spoke. Once he had made the photocopies, he would take the originals to Sorge or Hensmann on the ninth floor of the Stern building. If those gentlemen had time they would listen while he read out passages to them. After this ritual, the diaries were put into brown envelopes, sealed, and placed in the management safe. The secrecy which surrounded this procedure was very tight. The Stern Report subsequently described how

  The circle of those who knew about the diaries was carefully restricted. Written notes were avoided. If internal notes were required, they were supposed to be destroyed immediately. Those who knew about the project began to behave like a secret organization working underground.

  Walde did not even tell his wife what he was working on.

  This mania for secrecy makes it difficult to reconstruct some parts of the story. The only record of deliveries was kept by Sorge. It was handwritten and intelligible only to himself. On the left-hand side of a piece of paper he wrote the date and the amount of money paid to Heidemann. On the right he entered the number of volumes delivered. But, as the Stern Report noted, there was no record of ‘the time lapses between the deliveries, nor the order in which they came: to this day nobody knows at what point a particular book arrived at Stern’. Heidemann was not expected to account for the money he received. ‘It was quite clear to us’, explained Sorge, ‘that in this sort of business, Heidemann wouldn’t be bringing back receipts, nor would there be any indication of who the money was being paid to.’ Having already given the reporter a personal payment of 300,000 marks, and promised him hundreds of thousands more when the diaries were published, the management reckoned they could count on Heidemann’s integrity.

  Whenever Kujau had finished forging a new batch of diaries he would telephone Heidemann at his home in Hamburg and tell him that a lorryload of pianos containing a fresh consignment of the books had arrived from East Germany. These telephone calls, according to the reporter, would generally come at about 8 a.m., when he was lying in his morning bath. Heidemann would then hasten down to the Aspergstrasse shop. Kujau would give him an A4-sized package, three or four inches thick, containing the latest instalments. Heidemann would give him a sealed envelope full of money to be passed on to ‘General Fischer’. Sometimes Heidemann would open the package of diaries in Stuttgart and Kujau, pretending not to understand the old Germanic script, would ask him to read aloud from them. Heidemann would do so, a performance frequently interrupted by ‘ahs’ and ‘oohs’ from Kujau, as the forger feigned amazement at such an extraordinary historical document. After Heidemann had gone happily back to Hamburg, Kujau, equally happy, would open the packet of money, which – though he was not aware of it – held considerably less than it had when Heidemann took it from the safe in Hamburg.

  Of the 680,000 marks which by the end of February had been paid to him for the acquisition of the diaries, the likelihood is that Heidemann stole almost half of it. It is impossible to be certain about this: it is Kujau’s word against Heidemann’s, the word of a compulsive liar against that of an inveterate fantast. Nevertheless, the balance of probability, for once, is on Kujau’s side. According to both him and Edith Lieblang, the suitcase Heidemann opened up in their house on the night of 28 January contained 150,000 marks – not the 200,000 it had held when Heidemann had left Hamburg twenty-four hours earlier. In 1983, in a raid on Heidemann’s home, the police found a note confirming the reporter’s agreement with Kujau, but at a much lower cost than Manfred Fischer was aware of:

  Private collection, Militaria, Stuttgart FA, E. Lieblang, 7000 Stuttgart 1, Aspergstrasse 20.

  Documents and pictures: 500,000 marks

  27 diaries at 50,000 marks: 1,350,000 marks

  Mein Kampf: 150,000 marks

  Total: 2,000,000 marks

  Of the 85,000 marks being given to him for each volume in Hamburg, Heidemann was passing on at most 50,000 and keeping 35,000 for himself. In this way he pocketed 280,000 marks by the end of February alone.

  The Hitler diaries project was less than one month old but already it had at least three layers of mendacity. Kujau was deceiving Heidemann; Heidemann was deceiving Kujau and the management of Gruner and Jahr; and the management of Gruner and Jahr was deceiving the editors of Stern.

  On Monday 9 March, Manfred Fischer travelled to Guetersloh, one hundred and fifty miles from Hamburg, for a meeting of the senior management of the Bertelsmann group. In his suitcase he had three of the Hitler diaries which he had removed from the ninth-floor safe the previous evening.

  A full board meeting of the company on 11 February had confirmed Fischer as the next managing director of Bertelsmann. He was to take up his new job at the beginning of July, easing the workload presently being carried by Reinhard Mohn, head of the family which owned almost nine-tenths of the company. Mohn would shortly be reaching the firm’s retirement age of sixty. Daily operating control of Bertelsmann would be relinquished to Fischer. Mohn would concentrate on broader policy issues as chairman of the company’s board.

  It would not be easy for Fischer to establish his authority, stepping straight into the place of such a powerful figure, especially as Mohn would also continue to oversee his work. The Hitler diaries were a means of establishing that he had vision, imagination, a capacity for taking decisive action – proof, in the words of the Stern Report, of ‘his wide-ranging approach to the publishing business’.

  At the Guetersloh headquarters, Fischer asked Mohn for a private meeting. The two men retreated to Mohn’s inner office, his secretary was instructed not to let anyone pass, and Fischer brought out Heidemann’s dossier. He handed it to Mohn and drew his attention to Baur’s description of Hitler’s distress at the loss of his valuable papers. ‘We have now found them,’ he said. With considerable pride he laid
the diaries before Mohn. ‘These are Hitler’s diaries.’

  Mohn leafed through them. His reaction was all that Fischer had hoped it would be. ‘He was just as fascinated as we were,’ he recalled. ‘He thought it was just great.’

  ‘Manfred,’ said Mohn, ‘this is the most important manuscript ever to have passed across my desk.’

  His initiation brought the number within Bertelsmann who knew the secret of the Hitler diaries to seven.

  Three days later, on 12 March, Fischer signed a contract with Thomas Walde similar to the one agreed with Gerd Heidemann. Walde’s share of the profits would be a royalty of 4 per cent of book sales up to 10,000 copies, 4.8 per cent up to 50,000, and 6 per cent thereafter; from the sale of syndication rights he would receive 24 per cent of the gross revenue. His advance was 10,000 marks. Like Heidemann, he retained the right to veto the involvement of other historians on the project.

  On 2 April, a small drinks party was held on board Carin II to celebrate the way things were going. Manfred Fischer and Jan Hensmann arrived at about 6 p.m. to find Heidemann, Walde and Sorge already waiting for them. For Fischer and Hensmann, this was their first visit to the yacht. Heidemann showed them around, pointing out his various treasures. ‘He showed me Goering’s shoehorn,’ remembered Fischer, ‘and the big loo, installed because Goering had such a big backside.’ To Hensmann, the yacht ‘gave the impression of being clean and cared for’. After the tour, the men sat around drinking whisky and soda for two hours discussing their triumph. Heidemann was particularly excited. His discovery, he said, would ‘make the world hold its breath’.

  But already the first doubts about the diaries were beginning to be expressed. Contrary to the agreed policy of strict secrecy, despite his repeated and melodramatic warnings that disclosure would jeopardize human life, Heidemann could not resist showing off his great scoop. Reading through one of the first volumes Kujau delivered, covering the first six months of 1933, he came across references to the Führer’s élite troops, the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. Bursting with excitement he decided to contact a founder member of the Leibstandarte – his old friend Wilhelm Mohnke. In the spring of 1981 Heidemann rang the former SS general to tell him he had the first three diaries. ‘I’ll show you them,’ he said to Mohnke. ‘There are things about you in them.’ Mohnke, who three months earlier, on the day of Doenitz’s funeral, had disparaged the whole notion of ‘Hitler diaries’, hurried round to Heidemann’s flat on the Elbchaussee where he was shown a ‘black book’. He was unable to decipher the writing so Heidemann read out the relevant entries: