West Germany's Stern battles skeptics and former allies
Though word of the story had spread for several days, the blood-red banner headline was startling. Proclaimed West Germany's raffish picture magazine Stern: HITLER'S DIARIES DISCOVERED. To trumpet its acquisition of 62 volumes dated from 1932 to 1945, the entire span of Hitler's Third Reich, Stern (circ. 1.87 million) summoned more than 200 print and television reporters from around the world to its art deco headquarters in Hamburg. There, at a self-congratulatory three-hour press conference, Editor in Chief Peter Koch announced: "I am 100% convinced that Hitler wrote every single word in those books."
At first Koch seemed to have a group of estimable allies: the London Sunday Times, whose parent News Corporation bought (for an estimated $400,000) publication rights to the diaries within much of the British Commonwealth; eminent historians including Hugh Trevor-Roper, a Hitler scholar and Times director, who said he was "satisfied that the documents are authentic"; and Newsweek, which voiced some skepticism but took the find seriously enough to report it in a 13-page cover story.
Almost from the moment the press conference began, however, Stern's claim of authenticity for the diaries was questioned by historians and derided by the press, most notably in Britain. The London Standard said that it had acquired "exclusive rights to the diaries of Genghis Khan," while the Daily Mirror gibed, "The secret diaries of Hitler's secret lover, Eva Braun, have been found in a secret compartment of her secret handbag." Joshed the New York Times in a gently doubting editorial: "We would not be a bit surprised to pass a bookstand one day soon and see something entitled Not the Hitler Diaries, perhaps written by Clifford Irving."
Although it gave the diaries cover treatment, Newsweek had backed away from purchasing North American rights to them. TIME inspected the diaries and turned them down, primarily because there was insufficient time to conduct its own investigation into their authenticity. A subheadline on Newsweek's cover asked ARE THEY GENUINE? and the magazine devoted several paragraphs of its story to quoting disbelievers. In advertising for the story in 30-sec. television commercials in twelve cities, however, Newsweek omitted that cautionary line entirely. In full-page ads in six major U.S. newspapers, any doubts the magazine may have had were limited to a question buried in the fifth paragraph: "Are they real?" Said Newsweek Editor Maynard Parker, who supervised the package: "The advertising department had earlier deadlines than ours, but I do not feel that the ads misrepresent what is in the magazine."