Selling Hitler

by Robert Harris

  Legally, both men would have been entitled to reject Schulte-Hillen’s proposal. Nevertheless, they were forced to accept the logic of what he said. A new, handwritten contract was drawn up, under which both men would be entitled to the same percentage of the syndication revenue – but only after Gruner and Jahr had cleared its costs. Walde signed, reluctantly. Heidemann, characteristically, demanded something in return. He pointed out that he was giving up a probable income of 2.3 million marks. Schulte-Hillen had no alternative but to agree to pay him yet more ‘compensation’. Under the terms of the contracts of February 1981 and June 1982, he had already received 1.1 million marks in advances and ‘loans’. Schulte-Hillen arranged for that sum to be converted into a once-and-for-all ‘fee’ of 1.5 million marks.

  Heidemann also extracted another concession. From now on, it was written into his contract that he was ‘not obliged to reveal in fine detail the method by which the diaries were acquired, nor the names of his sources’. Schulte-Hillen took this as further evidence of Heidemann’s integrity – of his determination to protect the lives of his suppliers. In reality, Heidemann’s manoeuvre was almost certainly designed to cover up his own fraudulent activities: if he could prevent the company checking with Kujau, no one would ever know precisely how much he had paid for the diaries. Schulte-Hillen’s concession, seemingly trivial at the time, was to have important consequences.

  The day after the meeting in Cologne, Heidemann withdrew another 450,000 marks from the bank in Adolphsplatz.

  NINETEEN

  ON SATURDAY 20 NOVEMBER, the German People’s Union (DVU), a right-wing political group, organized a meeting in the Westphalian village of Hoffnungsthal. The speaker – a regular favourite among DVU audiences, with his stirring denunciations of communists and socialists – was David Irving.

  Irving arrived at the hall to be met by the unmistakable figure of Otto Guensche. The devoted SS major, whose claim to fame was that he had burned Hitler’s body, was a local DVU supporter. ‘He talks to nobody,’ noted Irving in his diary, ‘but has been an informant of mine for twelve years or more.’ After a few pleasantries, Guensche abruptly asked the historian: ‘What’s your view of the Rudolf Hess affair?’ According to Irving:

  I did not know what he was getting at. He continued, ‘Do you think the Chief knew about it in advance or not?’ I said I thought there were signs that Hitler approved of the idea in the autumn of 1940, but unless it was discussed by Hitler with Hess when they met briefly after the Reichstag session of 4 May 1941, Hitler was probably taken by surprise. Guensche said: ‘He knew about it. I know.’ I asked how. Guensche: ‘I’ve seen the proof.’

  Suddenly, Irving remembered his dinner with Priesack in London back in April.

  Acting on a hunch I said, ‘You’ve seen the Stuttgart diaries too?’ He said he had, that they were beyond doubt authentic, and that in this particular case they reveal Hitler as deliberating different courses of action: what to do if Hess’s mission succeeded, what if it failed, etc. The diaries also contain Hitler’s character assessments of his contemporaries, showing him a better judge than has hitherto been supposed, etc. Guensche implied that he has seen the originals.

  The conversation ended when Irving had to go up on to the platform to deliver his speech. Afterwards, hoping to pick up more information, he went back to Guensche’s house for tea. But Guensche had not withstood ten years of interrogation in the Soviet Union in order to be tricked into disclosure in his own home. He refused to say any more about the diaries and Irving left frustrated.

  Despite his elaborate show of concern for secrecy, Heidemann had always been remarkably indiscreet about the diaries. He had shown original volumes to former Nazis like Guensche, Mohnke and Wolff and to such shady contacts as Medard Klapper. On several occasions, Walde and Pesch had been forced to restrain him from boasting openly about his discovery to colleagues in the corridor at Stern. In 1981, he had sat his old friend Randolph Braumann down on the sofa in his apartment. According to Braumann: ‘He said: “Are you sitting comfortably?” and then from under the sofa he pulled out a plastic bag stuffed with bundles of money. He said it was for the diaries and asked me not to tell anybody.’ The following year, meeting Braumann in the Stern canteen, Heidemann had taken him outside to his car ‘and produced a packet containing seven or eight books. He seemed very proud, positively euphoric.’ Now Stern was to pay the price for Heidemann’s showing off.

  Returning to London twelve days later, Irving telephoned Phillip Knightley, the senior reporter on the Sunday Times, and told him of the existence of the Hitler diaries. ‘He is interested,’ wrote Irving in his diary. ‘I said I’d let him have a note about it at his private address.’ That same afternoon, Irving wrote to him, enclosing an account of his conversations with Priesack and Guensche, and stressing the usefulness of his reputation as a right winger: ‘I would be prepared to set up or conduct such negotiations with traditionally awkward German personalities as might prove necessary in an attempt to secure this material.’ In return, he made it clear that he expected a ‘finder’s fee’ of 10 per cent of the cost of the diaries. Knightley – who was about to return to his native Australia for four months – passed Irving’s offer on to Magnus Linklater, the features editor of the Sunday Times. On Wednesday .8 December, Linklater telephoned Irving to confirm that the paper was interested. At 9.15 that night, Irving rang August Priesack in Munich to try to extract more information from him. The first part of the conversation concerned itself with the old man’s forthcoming trial for ‘propagating the swastika’ in his book about the Nazi Party rallies.

  ‘You promised to provide a reference for me,’ said Priesack, reproachfully.

  ‘Yes,’ lied Irving, ‘that’s why I’m calling.’ (He had found the old man, frankly, to be rather a bore and had never had any intention of allowing his name to be associated with such an obvious crank.) He then had to endure five minutes of Priesack alternately moaning about his persecution and bragging about the book on Hitler’s art he was working on with Billy Price. (‘The book is written by me in every way. But it can’t be put out like that because the American has paid 400,000 marks for it – so he has to appear as the author.’) At last, after a number of false starts, Irving managed to turn the conversation to the diaries. According to Priesack ‘six or seven’ were already in America, where they were to be published. ‘That’s interesting,’ said Irving.

  PRIESACK: They’re just headlines from the Völkischer Beobachter.

  IRVING: The whole twenty-seven volumes?

  PRIESACK: Yes. He wrote them as something to jog his memory…. I’ve only seen a half-yearly volume from 1935, and there were in total only six interesting pages. You can read them in Hitler’s handwriting here [i.e. in Priesack’s apartment].

  IRVING: Good. When I’m there, I’ll—

  PRIESACK: But I’ve also got Mein Kampf. The third volume.

  IRVING: [emits stifled cry]

  PRIESACK: Haven’t you heard about that?

  IRVING: When did he write that?

  PRIESACK: He started that on the day after the seizure of power. Mein Kampf Three. I’ve got a few pages. They’ve not been sold. They’ll probably end up in America because America pays better.

  IRVING: Do you know where all this is? Can you find that out?

  PRIESACK: Up to a point, yes.

  IRVING: You are a real gold mine.

  PRIESACK: [laughs]

  After promising to send Priesack a character reference (describing him as ‘a well-known scientist’), and suggesting he might come and see him in Munich in a few days’ time, Irving hung up and switched off his tape recorder.

  The following day in Hamburg, the Hitler diaries team received an unpleasant surprise. In the belief that it might shake loose some information from someone, somewhere in Germany, Irving had written letters to dozens of West German newspapers to alert their readers to the existence of the diaries. On Thursday, 9 December, these seeds of mischief began sprouting in news
columns and letters pages across the country:

  I am of the opinion that German historians are guilty of failing to explain to the German public the facts behind the Nazi crimes against the Jews. We know that Adolf Hitler’s own diaries – 27 half-yearly volumes, including the first six months of 1945 – have entered the Federal Republic as a result of horse-trading with a major-general in the East German Army. They are however in private hands in Baden Wuerttemberg [the area of Germany which includes Stuttgart] and German historians are taking no notice of them. The Hitler diaries would surely clear up any doubts about whether he knew or did not know of Auschwitz, Treblinka and Majdanek.

  Among the thirteen West German newspapers which eventually carried Irving’s letter was Kujau’s and Stiefel’s daily paper, the Stuttgarter Zeitung.

  The effect of this burst of publicity on the furtive circle of south German collectors was dramatic. Like insects whose stone had been kicked away, they scurried for cover. Kujau rang Heidemann to warn him that Irving was on their trail. The reporter told him to put as much pressure as he could on Stiefel to ensure he kept quiet: above all, Irving must not get to see the 1935 diary which Stiefel still had in his safe. Kujau contacted the industrialist and warned him that he had heard from his brother that sixty-four East German generals had been summoned to Berlin in an effort to flush out whoever was supplying the diaries. Stiefel panicked. Convinced that he would be raided by the police at any moment, he packed his entire collection – his medals, papers, paintings and concentration camp china – and shipped it out of the country to his holiday home in Italy. He also wrote to Priesack. ‘I must ask you,’ he told him, ‘under the terms of our agreement, to, return to me all the copies and photographs which are in your possession and which come from us.’

  At four o’clock in the afternoon, Heidemann spoke to Irving on the telephone. He pleaded with him to keep quiet about the diaries. Not all the material, he said, was in the West: he was having to make repeated trips into East Germany and his life would be in danger if there were any more publicity. Irving replied that Priesack had told him that most of the material had already been smuggled out. ‘What has Priesack got?’ asked Heidemann. For a moment, Irving – who had not yet seen any of the material – was stumped for an answer. Recalling his conversation with Guensche he replied that Priesack had a letter from Hess to Hitler dated May 1941. As the conversation went on, Heidemann began to realize that Irving was bluffing. He did not know the scale of the archive in Stern’s possession. He thought that some of the books were still in America. He did not know about Hitler’s special volume on Hess. Almost all his information was either two years old or based on nothing more than regurgitated gossip. ‘Priesack’, he warned Irving, ‘is talking about things of which he knows nothing.’

  At the end of the conversation, Heidemann reassured his colleagues in the history department that the leak was not as serious as it appeared. He played them a tape recording of his telephone call from Kujau during which ‘Conny’ told him not to worry about Irving. According to Leo Pesch, Heidemann told them that ‘“Conny” was putting so much pressure on Stiefel, there was no way he would hand over his diary volume to Irving.’

  That same day, Heidemann collected another 450,000 marks from Sorge.

  In London, Irving began transcribing the tape of his telephone call to Priesack. It was a laborious task and took him until after midnight to complete. At 2 a.m. he drove round to the offices of the Sunday Times in Grays Inn Road and left a copy of the transcript in reception addressed to Magnus Linklater. He fell into bed, exhausted, half an hour later.

  Linklater found Irving’s envelope when he came into the office the next day. He was in a dilemma. Obviously he wanted to pursue the story. On the other hand, it was not wise, in his opinion, for the Sunday Times to become involved with a man of Irving’s reputation. Irving’s suggestion – that he should fly out to Hamburg and Munich at the paper’s expense in order ‘to identify and talk with the Stuttgart source’ – filled him with unease. Instead, he decided to do some checking of his own. He rang the German historian Hermann Weiss at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich and explained what Irving had told him. Weiss’s reaction was that the story was rubbish: it was inconceivable that there were any such ‘Hitler diaries’. The Sunday Times also contacted Gerd Heidemann, whose name had been given to them by Irving. Heidemann, according to Linklater, confirmed he was involved in trying to obtain Hitler material, but said that as a result of recent publicity much of it had ‘gone back’ over the border to East Germany.

  Early in the morning on Wednesday 15 December, five days after receiving Irving’s transcript of his conversation with Priesack, Linklater rang Irving at home. He told him that the Sunday Times could not afford to fly him to Germany: ‘We don’t have the large sums of money to throw around that we used to have.’ They would much prefer to send Hermann Weiss or one of their own reporters down to see Priesack. The paper wanted to involve someone who was ‘neutral’. Apologetic for the obvious inference in this remark, Linklater offered to pay Irving £250 for having given them the information in the first place. ‘We don’t want you to think we are trying to go behind your back,’ he said. He offered to give him time to think it over. Irving thanked him for his honesty and said he felt inclined to accept his offer.

  As soon as Linklater had hung up, Irving telephoned a contact at the German publishing company Langen Mueller. He told them that if they wanted to secure Hitler’s diaries they should move fast because the Sunday Times was on to them. By mid-afternoon, the publishers had called him back and offered to pay his air fare if he would inspect the material on their behalf. Irving immediately booked seats on a flight to Munich. He had no intention of being double-crossed by the Sunday Times.

  At the same time in Hamburg, Heidemann and Walde were being presented with a formal copy of the agreement sketched out in Cologne in October with Gerd Schulte-Hillen. Once the company had recovered its costs, the revenue generated by the diaries would be divided up between the journalists and Gruner and Jahr – and for the first time, in recognition of his work on the Hess manuscript, Leo Pesch was to be given a slice of the cake. Heidemann would receive 36 per cent of the money; Walde, 16 per cent; Pesch, 8 per cent; the company would take the remaining 40 per cent. These percentages would apply both to the sale of the syndication rights and to the sale of the actual diaries themselves.

  An appendix to the contract set out in detail exactly how the agreement might work in practice. Supposing syndication sales brought in 10 million marks: the company would immediately claim 9 million to defray its own costs; of the remainder, Heidemann would receive 360,000 marks, Walde 160,000 and Pesch 80,000 – Gruner and Jahr’s 40 per cent share would yield it 400,000 marks. If the books were sold – say, to an archive or a collector – for an additional 5 million marks, the company would immediately take half to cover its initial outlay. Of the remaining 2.5 million marks, Heidemann would then take 900,000, Walde 400,000 and Pesch 200,000; again, the company’s share would be 40 per cent – i million marks. In other words, despite the readjustment insisted upon by Schulte-Hillen, the journalists still stood to become rich men as a result of the diaries’ publication.

  Although individual volumes, mainly from the war years, were continuing to come in, the Hess manuscript was now finished. The most difficult task had been securing the cooperation of Frau Hess, from whom Walde and Pesch had wanted information about her visits to see her husband in Spandau. The Hess family had called in a lawyer who had insisted on payment of a fee of 5000 marks as well as a guarantee that the family’s ‘political standpoint’ would be represented when the story appeared in Stern. It had finally been agreed that this would be done in the form of an interview.

  A copy of the manuscript of Plan 3 was sent to Henri Nannen for his approval while Felix Schmidt briefed the head of Stern’s serialization department, Horst Treuke. Schmidt told Treuke to begin planning on the assumption that they would be running the Hes
s story in the summer of 1983. He also let him into the secret of the existence of the diaries. Treuke, startled by the news, asked if they were sure they were genuine. Schmidt reassured him. Did he seriously think that Schulte-Hillen would have paid out nine million marks to buy a set of forgeries?

  David Irving arrived at August Priesack’s apartment at 8.30 a.m. on Saturday morning. The much-vaunted ‘archive’ was spread out on the floor. ‘It consisted’, recalled Irving, ‘of some twenty folders, A3-sized, with photographs stuck on the front and photocopies of documents of the entire Hitler period, from his birth to the end of his life. A special folder covered the years from 1939 to 1945.’ When Stiefel had called Priesack in to look at his collection in 1979, he had rashly provided the ‘professor’ with photocopies of much of his Hitler material, including half a dozen sheets covering the most interesting entries from the 1935 diary. Several times, while Irving was skimming through the material, the telephone rang with urgent messages. The caller was Fritz Stiefel, but despite pressure from Irving, Priesack refused to identify him. He referred to him either as ‘Fritz’ or ‘the client’. He said that he was in trouble for having said as much as he had, that according to ‘Fritz’ the entire higher command of the East German Army had been summoned to Berlin for an inquiry into the rumours that one general was smuggling Hitler’s diaries to the West.

  If he was ever to get to the diaries, Irving knew that he needed to speak to this mysterious ‘client’. He decided to trick his doddering old host. ‘I persuaded Priesack – who would not give me Fritz’s other name however hard I tried – to telephone him reassuringly from the neighbouring room.’ Irving crept across to the door and counted the clicks as Priesack dialled the number. In this way he managed to make out the prefix code. (‘It’s easy. You know the first number is “0” and you can work out the rest from that.’)