Selling Hitler

Hitler for Sale ( English: Selling Hitler) is a British five -part television series. It is based on the eponymous non-fiction book by Robert Harris and addressed the media scandal over the Hitler diaries in 1983. Synchronized by WDR German version is reduced by a third and was broadcast in two parts in 1993 for the 10th anniversary of the discovery of the falsification of the record books.

Further technical data

  • Director: Alastair Reid
  • Production: Euston Films
  • Written by Howard Schuman
  • Camera: Clive Tickner
  • Sound: Gordon Brown
  • Editing: Nigel Shaw
  • Length the German version: 200 min

Content

Hamburg 1973. Ensign reporter Gerd Heidemann acquires Goering luxury yacht Carin II and plans to restore it and use it as a social meeting point for research on the Nazi period.

The enormous costs of maintaining the yacht devour gradually Heidemanns resources. About a dealer with Nazi memorabilia he learns in Stuttgart Dr. " Conny " Fischer know. Fischer asserts, through contacts in the GDR - his brother is supposedly General of the NVA - to have access to diaries of Adolf Hitler. These were saved in the spring of 1945 in Börnersdorf in a plane crash of village residents from the burning wreck. Heidemann travels to the GDR and satisfy itself that the crash actually took place.

With the consent of his superiors and funds of the star Heidemann buys gradually Copies of the diaries. Your authenticity is confirmed by several handwriting experts as well as the British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper and the American historian Gerhard Weinberg now. However, warn several former SS officers with whom Heidemann is friends, including Karl Wolff, the reporter explicitly the diaries. These contained passages that were demonstrably false.

The star decides nevertheless, the diaries exclusively to publish and market internationally, but without waiting for an important report from the Federal in Wiesbaden. In London, the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch scents a global business and is willing to acquire the rights to the books for the English market. It is indifferent whether the diaries are genuine or not, since their sale in each case will be a business. If it should turn out to be fakes, he wants to sue the star in addition to damages.

The dramatic climax of the series is the presentation of the diaries on April 25, 1983 in the publishing house of the star in Hamburg. It is a scandal, as the present at the press conference British historian David Irving explains the basis of various inconsistencies in his diaries for these fakes.

After also arrives the opinion of the BKA, from which it is clear that the diaries were made after 1945, Heidemann and fishermen are arrested and imprisoned for fraud. It turns out that this is in fact the more times previously convicted, but rather artistically talented Konrad Kujau Dr. Fischer. Kujau admits to have made ​​the fakes for purely commercial reasons. While Heidemann is mentally broken and continues to believe in the authenticity of the diaries, Kujau does not in custody a business from the scandal: For 50 - DM per piece he sold to journalists who visit him in the prison cell, "real" Hitler signatures.

Production backgrounds

The series is based on the non-fiction book by Robert Harris, but unlike a satirical and comedic elements to the template. Harris went there, as in his 1982 non-fiction book published Gotcha!, Which addressed the role of the British media during the Falklands war to their influence in politics and society. Literary model was like Gotcha! Evelyn Waugh's novel Scoop (German: Get the Scoop ) by 1938.

The film contains scenes of surrealistic dream Heidemanns, which are also not included in the book. Passages or quotes from the diaries to be underpinned by contemporary documentary photography. The German version of the series is reduced by one third of the length.

Westdeutscher Rundfunk Phil Knight Robert Harris (novelist) East Germany National People's Army Federal Criminal Police Office (Germany) News conference Surrealism Schtonk!
393782
de