Konrad Kujau; German Artist Who Forged ‘Hitler Diairies’

Konrad Kujau, the German artist who admitted forging the “Hitler diaries,” published in 1983 in a hoax perpetrated on Stern magazine, has died.

Kujau died Tuesday in a Stuttgart, Germany, hospital of stomach cancer. He was 62.

A gallery owner and painter, Kujau gained notoriety after it was determined that he had forged 60 volumes purporting to be the work of Adolf Hitler. The work fooled authorities on the Nazi era, including Hugh Trevor-Roper, an eminent Cambridge University scholar.

The weekly newsmagazine Stern, which paid $4.8 million for the documents, ran excerpts and sold publication rights to Newsweek, Paris Match and the Sunday Times of London.

Within days of the publication in Germany, federal investigators and historians exposed the handwritten diaries as crude fakes fat with historical inaccuracies.

Kujau was quickly arrested, along with Gerd Heidemann, a star reporter for Stern, who was obsessed with the Nazi era. Investigators found about half the money that Stern paid for the work hidden aboard a boat that Heidemann kept docked near his Hamburg home. That boat at one time belonged to Hitler aide and Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering.

Kujau and Heidemann accused each other of perpetrating the massive fraud; both were convicted and sentenced to prison.

Kujau served three years of a 4 1/2-year term before being released.

Born in eastern Germany, Kujau was trained as a blacksmith. He was once a member of a Communist youth organization but immigrated to what was then West Germany in 1957. He found work as a window washer and waiter before embarking on a career as a dealer in Nazi artifacts.

After his release from prison, Kujau maintained a high profile, accepting commissions to paint pictures in the style of the great masters. The words “forged by Konrad Kujau” were proudly written on the back of each work.

His last show, on the Spanish island of Majorca, was a mix of originals and works inspired by Monet and Klimt.

In June Kujau revealed that he had developed stomach tumors and had only months to live.

He is survived by his wife and son.