Gerd Heidemann, Journalist Duped by Fake Hitler Diaries, Dies at 93

Gerd Heidemann, a globe-trotting, high-flying German journalist who thought he had landed the scoop of the century — the private diaries of Adolf Hitler — but who came crashing back to earth after they were exposed as crude forgeries, died on Monday at a hospital in Hamburg, Germany.He was 93.Thomas Weber, a history professor at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland who was in close contact with Mr.

Heidemann, confirmed the death.Mr.Heidemann was one of the highest-paid correspondents in Germany when, at a news conference in 1983, he revealed what he said were 62 notebooks in which Hitler had written his innermost thoughts.

He told reporters he had bought them from a dissident East German general who had found them in a barn near Leipzig.The notebooks, Mr.Heidemann said at the time, offered groundbreaking insights into the Nazi leader’s thinking.

Among other things, they seemed to indicate that Hitler was largely unaware of the Holocaust — and also that he had bad breath, chronic flatulence and a rocky relationship with his mistress, Eva Braun.An accompanying editorial in Stern, the magazine where Mr.Heidemann worked, declared that thanks to Mr.

Heidemann, “the biography of the dictator and with it the history of the Nazi regime will be largely rewritten.”But his story began to unravel almost immediately, revealing a long trail of deception, delusion and comic ineptitude.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....