‘Hitler Diary’ Hoaxer Aided in Police Sting
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BERLIN — In a twist of history, the reporter who was at the center of the “Hitler Diary” hoax in 1983 is back in the news, this time for helping to recover a stolen guillotine and piano that once belonged to the Nazi dictator.
Gerd Heidemann went to prison in 1985 for his part in the literary hoax of the century in Germany. He was convicted of defrauding his embarrassed employer, Stern magazine, of more than $3 million to buy forgeries purporting to be diaries kept by Adolf Hitler.
Always a collector of wartime memorabilia, Heidemann this time turned out to be a police intermediary in a sting that resulted in the recovery last weekend of the two Hitler possessions stolen in 1989 from a warehouse at the Hamburg port.
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