The Hitler Diaries

Robert Harris tracked the fiasco following the sudden appearance in 1983 of the so called Hitler diaries. Now this brilliantly researched book is available in paperback.

Now for the first time, the complete expose of the most daring and successful forgery of all time. For seven days in April 1983, the sensational discovery of Hitler's sixty-two volumes of secret diaries dominated the news headlines of the world. Scholars hailed the diaries as the greatest find of the century, a historical bonanza that would entirely alter our views of Hitler and the Third Reich. Shocked readers followed daily installments showing that Hitler knew nothing about the Holocaust. Then, in an abrupt reversal, the diaries were proved to be bogus!

PRE-ORDER PRECIPICE, THE THRILLING NEW NOVEL FROM ROBERT HARRIS, NOW - PUBLISHING AUGUST 2024 'Impossible to stop reading' OBSERVER 'Thrilling, intricate and hilarious' DAILY MAIL APRIL 1945: From the ruins of Berlin, a Luftwaffe transport plane takes off carrying secret papers belonging to Adolf Hitler. Half an hour later, it crashes in flames. APRIL 1983: In a bank vault in Switzerland, a German magazine offers to sell more than 50 volumes of Hitler's secret diaries. The asking price is $4 million. 40 years from the alleged discovery, Robert Harris chronicles the gripping tale of one of the biggest frauds in history. 'Brilliantly chronicled' NEW STATESMAN 'A masterly account' LITERARY REVIEW

A “lively yet thoroughly researched” look at persistent myths and stubborn scams, and how historians try to combat them (The Courier-Journal). Did a collector with a knack for making sensational discoveries really find the first document ever printed in America? Did Hitler actually pen a revealing set of diaries? Has Jesus’ burial cloth survived the ages? Can the shocking true account of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination be found in lost pages from his murderer’s diary? Napoleon famously observed that “history is a set of lies agreed upon,” and Edward Steers Jr. investigates six of the most amazing frauds ever to gain wide acceptance in this engrossing book. Hoax examines the legitimacy of the Shroud of Turin, perhaps the most hotly debated relic in all of Christianity, and the fossils purported to confirm humanity’s “missing link,” the Piltdown Man. Steers also discusses two remarkable forgeries, the Hitler diaries and the “Oath of a Freeman,” and famous conspiracy theories alleging that Franklin D. Roosevelt had prior knowledge of the planned attack on Pearl Harbor and that the details of Lincoln’s assassination are recorded in missing pages from John Wilkes Booth’s journal. The controversies that Steers presents show that there are two major factors involved in the success of a hoax or forgery—greed and the desire to believe. Though all of the counterfeits and conspiracies featured in Hoax have been scientifically debunked, some remain fixed in many people’s minds as truth. As Steers points out, the success of these frauds highlights a disturbing fact: If true history fails to entertain the public, it is likely to be ignored or forgotten.

A stunning literary prophecy. The international bestseller that caused a sensation when it was published nine months before the Hitler Diaries forgery scandal. A French aristocrat and his mistress are murdered. A mysterious businessman offers the Fuehrer’s diaries to a New York publishing house. Are they a hoax or a record of terrifying truth? A controversial historian and his beautiful assistant are commissioned to find out the answer. Together they follow a trail that draws them into a terrifying web of conspiracy and slaughter. Competing forces fight to publish or suppress Hitler’s account of the War and secret negotiations with his enemies. Are the Diaries a genuine and shattering revision of history, whose revelation must be prevented? Or are they a forged, sinister attempt to destabilise contemporary Cold War politics? If the Hitler Diaries are authentic, then who left the bunker alive?

Robert Harris tracked the fiasco following the sudden appearance in 1983 of the so called Hitler diaries. Now this brilliantly researched book is available in paperback.