(5 of 5)
Heidemann has insisted that disclosure of his sources might endanger their lives. If they happen to be in East Germany, and if the diaries are authentic, the argument is persuasive: the East Berlin government would not be expected to look kindly on the smuggling out of materials of such historic, and commercial, value. Oddly, however, when NBC Reporter Jim Bittermann sought permission to go to Bornersdorf last week to follow Heidemann's story, he and his camera crew got a surprise: there were no delays, no red tape, and no supervision by officials when they interviewed residents. The townspeople offered conflicting and inconclusive recollections of the crash. Said Bittermann: "At least as curious as the villagers' stories is why the East German government wanted them told."
If the diaries are fraudulent, there is no shortage of theories about who produced them and why. Money would be motive enough. The market in Hitleriana is booming: an ordinary Hitler signature on a Wehrmacht officer's commission papers sells for $600 in the U.S.
But most of those who postulated that the Hitler diaries are fake believe the motive would have been political. The most common theory, voiced by Jäckel and Historian Werner Maser: the diaries may have been produced in an alleged Nazi memorabilia "forgery factory" in Potsdam, East Germany, for cash and for advancement of Soviet political aims. The two major "revelations" in the first installment of the diaries published by Stern are that Hitler approved Deputy Chancellor Hess's 1941 trip to Britain to propose a treaty and that he let the British escape at Dunkirk in hopes of persuading them to make a separate peace. Both claims have been forcefully challenged by historians, who noted that on the very day that Hess arrived to propose a German-British pact, Hitler's Luftwaffe planes bombed London's Houses of Parliament. The revisionist versions in the diaries coincide with the Soviet version of World War II: an untrustworthy Britain, more at ease with fascism than with Communism, primed to betray its alliance with Stalin. On Saturday, however, the Soviet news agency TASS dismissed the diaries as "a dirty falsification" designed to promote fascism.
The clamor for verification will surely continue until Stern opens the Hitler archive to detailed, patient analysis by scholars. Then, aided by the published record, historians would be able to reach a clearer idea of how much the 62 volumes could contribute to the historical record. If the diaries are authentic, their provenance has been tainted by Stern's mishandling of their verification. Asked to believe the all but impossible and denied the opportunity for proof, academics and most of the press rightly balked. Trevor-Roper summed up, more in sorrow than in anger: "As a historian, I regret that the normal process of historical verification has been subordinated, perhaps necessarily, to the requirements of a journalistic scoop."
—By William A. Henry III.
Reported by Gary Lee/Hamburg and Melissa Ludtke/New York