21 Facts About Konrad Kujau

Konrad Paul Kujau was a German illustrator and forger.

Konrad Kujau became famous in 1983 as the creator of the so-called Hitler Diaries, for which he received DM 2.5 million from a journalist, Gerd Heidemann, who in turn sold it for DM 9.3 million to the magazine Stern, resulting in a net profit of DM 6.8 million for Heidemann.

Konrad Kujau held a series of menial jobs until 1957, when he was working as a waiter at the Lobau Youth Club, and a warrant was issued for his arrest in connection with the theft of a microphone.

Konrad Kujau began to create a fictional background for himself, telling people his real name was Peter Fischer, changing his date of birth by two years, and altering the history of his time in East Germany.

Konrad Kujau started his career as a counterfeiter, forging DM 27 worth of luncheon vouchers; he was caught and sentenced to five days in prison.

In 1970, Konrad Kujau visited his family in East Germany and found out that many of the locals held Nazi memorabilia, contrary to the laws of the Communist government.

Konrad Kujau saw an opportunity to buy the material cheaply on the black market and make a profit in the West, where there was an increasing demand for such items.

The man ran off and Konrad Kujau chased him into the wrong doorway, terrifying a prostitute.

Konrad Kujau soon began to raise the value of items in his shop by forging additional authentication details, including for a genuine First World War helmet, worth a few marks, for which Konrad Kujau forged a note saying it had been Hitler's, worn in Ypres in late October 1914, thereby radically raising its value.

Konrad Kujau produced an introduction to a third volume of the work.

Konrad Kujau sold these "manuscripts" to one of his regular clients, Fritz Stiefel, a collector of Nazi memorabilia.

Konrad Kujau began forging a series of war poems by Hitler, which were so amateurish that Konrad Kujau later admitted that "a fourteen-year-old collector would have recognized it as a forgery".

Stiefel says Konrad Kujau gave him a diary on loan in 1975.

Schulze puts the date in 1976, while Konrad Kujau says he began in 1978.

Konrad Kujau used one of a pile of notebooks he had bought cheaply in East Berlin, and mistakenly put the letters FH in gold on the front; these letters were purchased in a department store and made of plastic in Hong Kong.

Konrad Kujau had spent a month practising to write in the old German gothic script in which Hitler used to write.

Konrad Kujau showed it to Stiefel who was impressed by the work, and wanted to buy it, but when the forger refused to sell it, he asked to borrow it instead, which was agreed upon.

In 1978 Konrad Kujau sold his first "Hitler Diary" to a collector.

Konrad Kujau told Heidemann that the diaries were in the possession of his brother, who was a general in the East German Army.

On his release from prison after three years, Konrad Kujau became something of a minor celebrity, appearing on TV as a "forgery expert", and set up a business selling "genuine Konrad Kujau fakes" in the style of various major artists.

Konrad Kujau stood for election as Mayor of Stuttgart in 1996, receiving 901 votes.