Presenter: Andrew Hunter Murray
Producer: Ruth Abrahams
Client: BBC Radio 4
Year: 2026
The Hitler Diaries Scandal
The hoax diaries that almost fooled the world
Writer and broadcaster Andrew Hunter Murray uncovers last century's biggest ever publishing scandal, a forgery which rocked the world and destroyed reputations.
When Germany's biggest magazine Stern announced in 1983 that they'd found the long-lost diaries of Adolf Hitler, authenticated by the eminent British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, the world was poised to rewrite history.
That, at least, was the story - a story which news organisations the world over, including Rupert Murdoch's newly-acquired Sunday Times, believed. This would be a sensation - assuming, of course, that it was true.
Murray's mission is to track down the actual books which caused all this chaos, and to get as close as he can to the truth. In our own time of AI, fake news and disinformation, are there any lessons we can take from the greatest hoax of the last fifty years?