The Hitler Virus by Peter Wyden

Author:Peter Wyden [Wyden, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-61145-322-5
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2011-08-04T16:00:00+00:00

BOOK 5

VIRUS CARRIERS

19

WHY THE “HITLER DIARIES” WERE BELIEVED

The acclaimed British historian H. R. Trevor-Roper called it “the greatest scoop since Watergate,” and on April 23, 1983, this world-class sensation was bannered across the front page of the London Times.

38 YEARS AFTER BUNKER SUICIDE

HITLER’S SECRET DIARIES TO BE

PUBLISHED

A 3,000-word article by Trevor-Roper led the paper, in which the author of The Last Days of Hitler put his considerable reputation on the line. He reported that he had examined the fifty handwritten volumes in Zurich and that they were legitimate.

He brought suspense to his own dramatic role as chief judge: “When I had entered the back room of the Swiss bank, and turned the pages of those volumes, my doubts gradually dissolved. I am now satisfied they are authentic.”

The international media were gripped by a collective run for their checkbooks. An angry bidding battle between the British press lord Rupert Murdoch and Katharine Graham, the president of Newsweek, drove up the price for newspaper and magazine publishing rights to $3.75 million. The German magazine Stern, launch site and owner of the diaries, would pay out $12 million in the course of the enterprise.

The exorbitant costs notwithstanding, the publishing executives were elated. Among themselves, they referred to the diaries as “the publishing event of the century” Sidney Mayer, the veteran London publisher of Hitleriana, was proved right once again: “Hitler sells.” And sells. And sells. Curiosity about the personal notations of the long-departed dictator remained so compelling that the daily circulation of the London Times jumped by 60,000 copies the moment the first diary pages came out. Sterns distribution shot up by 400,000, to 2.1 million.

Hitler intimates joined Trevor-Roper and some fellow historians in certifying the legitimacy of the diaries. Hans Baur, Hitlers gruff personal pilot, allowed, “It was Hitler s writing.” Wolf Hess, Rudolf Hesss son, pronounced that he had no doubt the volumes were genuine.

The real insider in the case (and highest-ranking survivor of Hitler s inner circle), SS General Karl Wolff, the chief of Himmlers personal staff, had been the project’s consulting authority all along. He treasured the diaries, and upon their publication he was ready with his view of their contemporary meaning — the interpretation of an incorrigible Nazi eager to keep alive the public s memory of the Führer.

“Here is confirmation,” he told reporters from the London Sunday People, “for what my friends and I have said for years: Hitler never ordered the annihilation of the Jews. The picture of Hitler was blackened by these accusations and the reputation of the German people was damaged. The diaries cleanse this reputation, and my own. We are idealists and nationalists, not criminals.”

The general was engaging in his favorite sport, hyperbole; the cleansing of his reputation would have required vastly more than a set of diaries, even if they had been genuine, which of course these were not. Wolff, then eighty-four, could look back on a rollicking career as an advertising man, convicted war criminal, betrayer of Hitler, and respected friend of Allen Dulles, the American spymaster.

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