Talk:Hitler Diaries/Archive 1

Contents of the diaries
I agree with Ashley Pomeroy and would like to add that it would be nice to know what the diaries actually said, if just a brief review. I mean, is it all trite nonsense... the kind of thing anyone rights in a diary... or was it some Hitler-esque thing that might reveal something about Hitler himself? - NinedenLtD 18:15, 12 January 2005 (UTC)

It would be interesting to know where the forged diaries are nowadays - were they tossed into the rubbish, or are they in a museum somewhere? Did any of the newspapers involved print extracts from the diaries? I have no idea who owns the copyright of the Diaries' contents. Konrad Kujau, perhaps, although according to the article he plagiarised a book of Hitler's speeches, and Hitler's few remaining relatives are unlikely to take legal action. And there is also the matter of verifying any purported extracts from the Diaries, because they could be fabricated as well. -Ashley Pomeroy 15:42, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Further scientific evidence

 * Modern glue was also used, according to experts.

I recall reading that the paper wasn't modern - the forger managed to find some unused pre-war bound blank volumes (which may explain why the monograph was wrong). Ben Finn 16:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The paper was modern. The evidence was in the nylon bindings, which wasn't used in books until the 1950s.  Carajou 11:20, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Irving
Intro states that the diaries "were subsequently publicly and dramatically exposed by David Irving as forgeries". However, the David Irving article says he repeatedly reversed his position on this subject - his "expose" seems to have been based on mere opinion, whereas Grant's later revelation seems to have a scientific basis. I am thus changing this part to "were subsequently revealed to be forgeries"; the details are found later in the article. Irving's role in this controversy should probably be mentioned later in the article. Muad (talk) 12:22, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Werner Maser
This NY times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/world/europe/11maser.html?fta=y states that Werner Maser was the first historian to assert that the diaries were false. Should it be included?radek (talk) 15:26, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Castle Wolfenstein
I can clearly remember that Hitler's diary could be found, but in the sequel game Beyond Castle Wolfenstein from 1984. Eva Braun's diary was an object in the original game, Castle Wolfenstein --Asher Levy (talk) 15:23, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

FH, AH
As for the difference between FH and AH, is it possible the original intent was for the FH to stand for Führer-Hauptquartier (Führer's Headquarters)? Michael Dorosh 07:13, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I dont think so, the reason is that the letters look very much alike, as you can see here , so it was a mistake. -- 80.141.59.155 14:55, 14 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Really? They don't look very similar to me at all. This is a similar typeface: and you can see that the A looks nothing like the F. 143.252.80.100 10:57, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The 'F' could look like an 'A' to someone unacquainted with that style — which, btw, looks to me more English than German. —Tamfang (talk) 09:30, 14 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes. If you're blind. 81.178.250.199 (talk) 07:07, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

The letters were correct
"Even the monogram on the cover of one volume was "FH" instead of "AH" (for Adolf Hitler), although in the old German typeface those letters looked strikingly similar. "FH" could conceivably have stood for "Führerhauptquartier" ("Führer Headquarters")."


 * This is nonsense. The letters AH were correct. There was no F.--80.141.228.3 (talk) 20:21, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No - it's definitely an F. These old letters are a bit difficult to read but it's shown on the page anyway, the A and the F in that particular script. --Maxl (talk) 20:40, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

'Forgeries'
In April 1983, the West German news magazine Stern published excerpts from what purported to be the diaries of Adolf Hitler ...which were subsequently revealed to be forgeries.
 * My understanding of forgery always has been an attempt to recreate exactly an existing document, signature, banknote, etc. The so-called Hitler diaries were not this sort of replication of the real thing, they were a complete invention, a fabrication. Suggest forgeries be replaced by "a hoax" – which if memory serves was the operative term at the time. Sca (talk) 12:43, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Or, as you yourself have said "Webster: The crime of falsely making or copying a document in order to deceive people; something that is falsely made or copied in order to deceive people; something that is forged.", i.e. making a document to deceive people. Which is what this was.  The Rambling Man (talk) 20:47, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe "hoax" would meet it better. --Maxl (talk) 20:41, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

script

 * ...writing in the old German gothic script Hitler had used.

Would that be Kurrent? —Tamfang (talk) 08:59, 13 March 2016 (UTC)


 * The sources do not clarify the point. – SchroCat (talk) 09:02, 13 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I just added that link before looking here - and removed the bit about Hochdeutsch, which isn't supported by the cited source and would in any case be weird: the most that would have been changed is spellings, and Hitler's dialect was in any case very much Hochdeutsch (= Southern German) as opposed to Plattdeutsch (= North German). What would be meant is gebildetes Deutsch, educated German, but the source says nothing about changing the syntax. Yngvadottir (talk) 02:43, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Priesack
"In June 1979 Stiefel asked an expert in Hitler memorabilia, August Priesack, to verify the authenticity of the diary, which he subsequently did."

I'm not sure that should pass without comment or qualification. Sources on Priesack are lacking, but Harris was critical of Priesack's ability and qualifications. There's a memorable incident in which Priesack, while working with the American collector Billy F. Price, "authenticated" a painting that Kujau had completed about a week beforehand. The story of Price isn't central to the Hitler Diaries, but we should inform the reader that Priesack isn't an "expert" in the normal sense of the word. Mackensen (talk) 15:30, 25 June 2016 (UTC)


 * The balance of the sources used state that Priesack was an expert. I'm not sure his mis-authentification of one painting is particularly telling: Dacre—a widely acknowledged expert on Hitler—verified the diaries, so there you go. Either way, I've tweaked it to "former Nazi Party archivist", which is a truthful description, free from any judgments or biases. Does that work for you? - SchroCat (talk) 15:53, 25 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Priesack was recommended to Stiefel by Kleenau, an auctioneering firm in Munich, so Priesack certainly had a reputation as an expert on Hitler art and writing, but that reputation was undeserved. The watercolour incident occurred in 1978 when Stiefel asked Priesack to verify his archive, much of which had been purchased from Kujau. Priesack did so; much of this "archive" turned out to be forgeries. There are several other examples in Harris of Priesack failing to properly evaluate and identify alleged original documents. Price and Priesack's subsequent book on Hitler's painting contained a number of Kujau's forgeries, not just the one from 1978. My problem with your proposed wording is that it actually makes Priesack sound even more like an expert, which he wasn't. The clear implication from Harris is that Priesack "authenticated" the Stiefel diary because he was a gullible Nazi. I'm thinking on better wording, but this article shouldn't introduce Priesack uncritically as an expert. For all that, the fact that Dacre wasn't fluent in German and couldn't read Kurrent is relevant and should be mentioned, but one thing at a time. Mackensen (talk) 16:28, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
 * As I said, the balance of the sources say he was, but it's something of a moot point as I've changed the wording already to something that is entirely correct and verifiable: not even his largest detractors will deny that he was a "former Nazi Party archivist" (every single source (including Harris) acknowledges this). This does not necessarily make him an expert, but it does show he had a degree of knowledge in the topic: again every single source (including Harris) acknowledges this. - SchroCat (talk) 16:47, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I haven't read Hamilton, but I assume Priesack's incompetence (for the task at hand at any rate) didn't escape him. I've added a note about Priesack's prior involvement with Stiefel. Mackensen (talk) 16:55, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

The purchase price adjusted for inflation
The inflation template should be included to show how much the 1983 cost is after adjusting for inflation (its about $8,806,000). Also, how accurate is the Marks to dollars conversion? I know that the dollar was weak in the early 80's, but that seems a little low. Food for thought. __209.179.54.133 (talk) 03:40, 27 June 2016 (UTC)


 * It's a fairly meaningless conversion as,it would be a double sum (DM to $ the on to current levels), which is why your figure looks low. DM to current levels would have given something more tangible to work on, but there is no DM anymore. – SchroCat (talk) 06:07, 27 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks for replying but I really don't understand your point as you seem to be comparing apples to oranges. The way I understand you, you're saying that we can't adjust for inflation because the Deutsche Mark no longer exists and therefore there is no way to compare it to today's dollars. It's irrelevant whether or not the Mark still exists. The item cost X amount of dollars in 1983 and all we have to do is calculate for the rate of inflation.


 * Unless I've misunderstood what you meant, or there is some fact I don't get, I don't see that you've given a valid point for not including the inflation adjusted amount. This would be important to readers, so that they have a better understanding of it's true cost - right? __209.179.36.56 (talk) 03:53, 1 July 2016 (UTC)


 * No, not right: that's not the way to get an accurate figure. Let me put it another way: the figures we would be able to provide would be so inaccurate as to be meaningless and unencyclopaedic. Comparative amounts for inflation are often dubious, and that would be the case here. – SchroCat (talk) 04:00, 1 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Believe me, I have no desire to beat a dead horse so let me just say this, that I still don't think your point holds water. You first say that, "the figures we would be able to provide would be so inaccurate as to be meaningless...," but the figures we use are the ones provided by the U.S. Govt. and the Federal Reserve. Are you saying that their figures are inaccurate? Why? If they say $1.00 in 1983 is equal to $2.40 in 2016, who are we to second guess them? And you also say that it would be un-encyclopedic, but this is commonly done in other articles, and Wikipedia itself provides inflation templates to do this very thing. So I'm still confused by your objections. Thanks for responding. __209.179.36.56 (talk) 03:19, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Protection
I've protected this article for a day. Please talk it out here. Thanks, Mackensen (talk) 12:41, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Please don't protect on my account. I have no intention of challenging the status quo here. I've learned my lesson. Readers interested in the Hitler diaries definitely need to know that name of Kujau's girlfriend, the name of the cleaning company they formed, the name of the youth club from which he many have stolen a microphone, and so on. Stuff like that really brings the subject to life and does not in the slightest bog the reader down in a slog of minutiae.  E Eng  13:11, 7 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Out of curiosity, I followed the trail back through a series of  with colorful edit summaries to the actual edits made by EEng to see what all the fuss was about. I have no particular interest in this article, nor do I have any bias toward or against either EEng or SchroCat. However, after studying EEng's edits, I have to say I agree with all of them, and the edit summaries. I see on the article's talk page the following statement:


 * Hitler Diaries is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.


 * This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on June 25, 2016.


 * SchroCat, I didn't go back further than EEng's edits, so I don't know if there are any relevant earlier exchanges, but is there a rule that says, because an article is a featured article, all changes must be discussed first on the article talk page? If there is not, then, according to the statement above, editors are not only free to make edits to the article but encouraged to do so. I don't understand your demand that EEng discuss proposed changes on the talk page before making them. In my view, the polite thing to do on your part would be, if you disagree with an edit for a good reason, to begin a discussion about that particular edit rather than reverting.


 * A GA article represents at least good, or very good, prose. An FA article should display very good to outstanding prose. This article was approved as a featured article a year ago. A lot of editing could have taken place since then, which may have put some dents in the quality of the prose. EEng removed some unnecessary detail from the article, and you objected and reverted, I think unwisely. An article that is cluttered with a surfeit of unnecessary detail is not written in the best prose. If you think those details are so important that they need to be included in the article, perhaps you could search for a better place to put them. Details should be carefully selected to illustrate or explain a point. Only details that are really pertinent to the topic being discussed or explained should be included at that point in the article. They can be included elsewhere in the article if necessary. I think you may have let your dislike of EEng get in the way of objectively assessing the prose in this article and perhaps grudgingly agreeing that EEng was right in every case. At least EEng included clear edit summaries, unlike many editors. You might want to go back and look at each edit, and read the edit summary, and try to put aside your feelings about EEng, and reconsider your reversions, and think about whether that particular detail is necessary there, and, if not, perhaps move it to a place where it would be more pertinent; you could also make the case for why that detail really ought to be included there.  – Corinne (talk) 21:12, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * "is there a rule that says, because an article is a featured article, all changes must be discussed first on the article talk page?" Who on earth ever claimed there was? I certainly have not, so please try and get some of the basics right before you come in in full patronising lecture mode. Poor edits were made (they are poor, but because EEng declined to use the talk page for the very reason we have them. I have not explained the reasoning); I reverted to the better state the existed. That's when we are supposed to discuss; some editors think the basics don't apply to them and force their edits back in, even when their is good reason to revert.
 * As to my thoughts on EEng, you are not a mind reader or clairvoyant and have no idea what my thoughts are, so please don't try to double guess me. next time, at least make a vague effort at AGF: to assume I have reverted simply because of personal feelings to another editor (however erroneous your guesses may be) is a cheap effort. His edits were not good; to claim that "EEng was right in every case" shows ignorance that this is a matter of opinion and therefore no right or wrong. I have a good reason for my edits, and your lack of any sort of good faith before you jumped to an erroneous conclusion is a poor reflection on your approach. - SchroCat (talk) 21:29, 17 July 2017 (UTC)


 * , you tried. Your faith in the potential for human redemption is almost saintly. But we will have to leave this article to its owners, who will brook no tampering with their overstuffed insomnia remedy. Anyway, in the end it's for the best: this increasingly irrelevant clique needs a few places to play big-man-in-charge, lest they start visiting their imperiousness on the rest of us elsewhere.  E Eng  02:24, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh good. Snark. That's always a positive step. - SchroCat (talk) 06:18, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

As no-one has actually asked me to explain the rationale behind my reverts (one edit warrior who pointedly didn't use the talk page, except for snarky sniping, and one patronising show of bad faith in assuming the reversions were because I do not like another editor), I'll explain.

"grudgingly agreeing that EEng was right in every case"? Not even bloody close: it was a series of poor edits that I was entirely justified in removing. - SchroCat (talk) 07:42, 18 July 2017 (UTC)


 * The fact that you can call – perhaps the sweetest, gentlest editor any of us has ever run into – "patronising" shows just how far off the deep end you've gone. Your table doesn't show what the old and new text were for each edit, thus hiding that your explanations either are tautological ("we have given the age of Hitler" – yes, but again: so what?) or make no sense ("and that he died" – actually no, your text doesn't say that, but even if it did: so what???) where they're not just plain arbitrary. But you've done all this sputtering for nothing because nobody cares anymore: you own the article and it will remain stuffed with minutiae like the name of a cleaning company.  E  Eng  09:15, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Bye bye, little troll. Loose the bad faith, snark and trolling and it would be better, although claims such as ""and that he died" – actually no, your text doesn't say that" might be taken more seriously if you actually bothered to read things before trying to attack. - SchroCat (talk) 09:23, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * No idea what you're talking about, but it doesn't matter because I'm a troll. 's a troll. You're surrounded by trolls. When your best friend comes off his latest block you two can commiserate about it (unless of course you're on one of your periodic huffy "retirements" by then). In the meantime we'll all enjoy watching you rail against infoboxes.  E Eng  10:06, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Please don't lie: I have not called Corinne a troll, either here or elsewhere. I have called you a troll, because anyone who states that I have "gone off the deep end" and links to the Mccarthy hearings deserves little else. If you can't discuss things like an adult then there is little point in taking this further.
 * , if you wish to discuss the changes, I will do, despite the unnecessary noise on the page. - SchroCat (talk) 10:17, 18 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Oh, sorry, that's right, you didn't call Corinne a troll, you just accused her of "patronizing bad faith", and that's a lot better! Nonetheless it must be hard to be surrounded by trolls, trolls, more trolls, trolls on your left, trolls on your right, trolls in front of you, trolls behind you, trolls!, trolls, everywhere trolls! It's your curse to be so attractive to trolls! But such is the lot of the true creator.  E  Eng  15:27, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

You may perhaps have heard how a collapse box draws additional attention to its content. Thanks! How's that blood pressure?  E Eng  15:40, 18 July 2017 (UTC)


 * It looks to me like SchroCat has give clear explanations for why his versions are clearer and provide some important details that should not be lost. I agree with SchroCat's edits. -- Ssilvers (talk) 01:43, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * An explanation can be "clear" while ignoring the actual question, which is whether all this additional detail benefits the reader enough to justify the eyestrain and drain on attention. I don't think further discussion will be fruitful since, as already noted, the intense sense of ownership and certainty of superiority on the part of one contributor makes this one of those articles which must unfortunately be left to its own fate.  E  Eng  04:59, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:41, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Hans Baur.jpg

Letters FH
It should be noted, that contrary to what the article states, the usuage of the letters FH was not an accident but done fully intentional. Tapio1994 (talk) 21:16, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comment; do you have a reliable source to show the usage was “fully intentional”? The other sources suggest otherwise, so it would be interesting to see a different stance. - SchroCat (talk) 21:49, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Claims regarding the money
I removed an unsourced statement accusing a still living person of having stolen several millions of Marks. The facts of the case are muddy; Kujau claimed Heidemann had not given him all the money the latter had received from Stern. Both Kujau and Heidemann live(d) relatively modest lives after having served their sentences, which would raise the question where the money went if either of them pocketed it. Both Kujau and Heidemann were sentenced to prison terms which they served. I think we should only write about the money what can be proven (which is preciously little). We know the Stern gave Heidemann money at least some of which Heidemann gave to Kujau. Everything else is speculation. Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:35, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Hitler Diaries states that both men were convicted and jailed, cited to the standard work on the topic. Material in the lead of articles doesn't need to be cited if it's referenced in the body of the article. Nick-D (talk) 08:47, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Kujau was jailed for forgery ("Urkundenfälschung") as well as "Betrug". In the verdict the court said "We cannot determine how much money Heidemann had taken" which in essence is an admission by the court that they could not prove anything and just took Kujau's word for it that Heidemann had not given Kujau all the money. Of course Kujau is not a reliable source on anything. Kujau likewise claimed Heidemann had known the books were forgeries all along. Heidemann had taped the vast majority of his telephone conversations with Kujau but the court only entered a small bit of it into evidence which sounded for a second like it incriminated Heidemann but ultimately didn't. The other parts of the tapes - many of which discuss the money Heidemann handed over to Kujau - were not entered into evidence and the court ignored them in writing their verdict. The Stern itself has produced a podcast using a lot of the tapes to shine a light on what happened. While the podcast is arguably too sympathetic of Heidemann who comes off to me as naive at best, it does provide a lot of evidence for the claim that Heidemann did not pocket the money. Hobbitschuster (talk) 12:08, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Time and commercial pressure on historians
When consulted by media companies, why did eminent historians come to the wrong initial conclusions? I think that the time and commercial pressures of what might be call a "buying frenzy" for the rights to the diaries is significant. Historians were forced into making snap judgements; given time to reflect, they changed their minds. There is also the element of not wanting to be initially saying no to a sensational revolutionary interpretaion - the Decca executive who turned down the Beatles factor. My edit citing the "Scholar's Appraisal" that Weinberg gave to Newsweek was, as he describes in the article, a two hour scan of roughly five percent of the material in a conference room of a Zurich bank. This was omitted by @ShroCat in a subsequent edit (cleaning up my repeated references, thank you). But I think a significant point (and warning to historians who give soundbites to the media) has been missed. I'd like to re-instate, subject to consensus, the description of the two-hour time pressure that Weinberg was under. Corsac Fox Kazakhstan (talk) 17:57, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * You may be right, but I think it goes into the territory of OR. We have in there that Weinberg said they were genuine, but had some reservations. His reservations were not based on the idea he was rushed, but that he was not "a German expert on the Third Reich who has already made his reputation", which is the type of person he thought should be asked. - SchroCat (talk) 18:18, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Indeed his reservations were not based on his being rushed. I was thinking more of the yin to that yang. It was the openness that he and others displayed that were the result of being rushed. So perhaps more the yang to that yin, given that I am regarding the sunnier disposish. I had thought that flatly presenting just the facts of how little time he had to examine a small proportion of the evidence would allow the reader to understand the context. Though I do see that perhaps that might be verging into leading the bull by the nose to a conclusion that might reflect my bias against the vulgarity of the media industry. Happy to leave it as it is.
 * Another thought, the quotation, "the notion of anyone forging hundreds, even thousands of pages of handwriting was hard to credit" does not seem exactly right, perhaps Hamilton paraphrasing Weinberg who in the Newsweek article conveys the same thought, but in two laboured sentences, so the contraction is understandable if not verbatim. Unless it is from elsewhere. Corsac Fox Kazakhstan (talk) 02:52, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Wrong Dacre
In the section “release to the media..” when Murdoch says “Fuck Dacre” he is referring to Baron Dacre (Trevor-Roper), not Paul Dacre. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Trevor-Roper - the wrong Dacre article is linked 92.21.1.53 (talk) 14:31, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

I spotted that too and changed it MrStoofer (talk) 10:23, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I've edited this. That "Dacre" refers to Trevor-Roper is not clear, so it needs explanation in prose - wikilinking it by way of explanation (forcing the reader to examine the link to understand what the term means) is a form of WP:EASTEREGG linking. Popcornfud (talk) 11:14, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Recent edits
I disagree with some of the changes in this edit:


 * Irving, who had been described in the introductory statement by Koch as a historian "with no reputation to lose", stood at the microphone for questions, and asked how Hitler could have written his diary in the days following the 20 July plot. I don't understand this - why did he have no reputation to lose? Can we explain this?


 * The short description is: Series of journals purportedly by Adolf Hitler, but forged by Konrad Kujau Per WP:SHORTDESC, short descriptions should be short - no more than 40 characters. This is almost double, at 74. I don't think it really matters for the shortdesc who created the forgery, and as the name Hitler is already in the article title, we probably don't need to tell readers which Hitler we mean.


 * I think the use of "the latter" is almost never justified per WP:ELEVAR, but that's a minor issue. Popcornfud (talk) 13:59, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Without sourcing I don't think we can interpret what was meant by that statement, but it is significant to the narrative.
 * "Forged journals" on the other hand is not sufficient for readers to have an understanding of what the article is about.
 * In this case "the latter" readers better than the proposed alternative. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:09, 22 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Regarding the statement on Irving, it’s no use saying it’s important to the narrative if we don’t give the reader any way of knowing why it’s important or even exactly what it means. As the statement is sourced, it presumably is explained in the given source - can anyone check it ? Popcornfud (talk) 12:14, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Public knowledge of Bormann's death
An edit glossing the fact that Bormann's death only became public knowledge decades after it occurred was reverted. The article on Bormann states in the lead paragraph that his body was only found in the 1970s and final definitive proof that it was him was only received via DNA testing in the 1990s. The circles in which Heidemann got the contact of Kujau, full of old-Nazis as they were, seems to have clung to the belief that he had gotten away into the 1980s as can be heard in a short comment on one of the tapes Heidemann made of his phone calls with Kujau. Of course when Bormann died is of little consequence to this article, but the claim that his demise only became public knowledge decades after the fact is not dubious. Hobbitschuster (talk) 12:13, 17 September 2020 (UTC)