If all German TV is this good, I should brush up on my German

"Faking Hitler" is a delightfully entertaining miniseries based on the true story of the forged Hitler Diaries purchased by a German magazine in the 1980s.

On Friday, I plowed through all six episodes of "Faking Hitler," the 2021 German miniseries about how a forger hoodwinked a German magazine into paying him for a bunch of fake diaries purportedly written by Adolf Hitler.

While it is fictionalized, "Faking Hitler" is based on actual events.

In the 1980s a set of diaries supposedly written in Adolf Hitler’s hand came to the attention of Gerd Heidemann, an investigative reporter with the German magazine Stern.

The diaries were in reality fakes written by petty criminal and forger Konrad Kujau, who made his money selling Nazi memorabilia (much of it he forged).

Using the pseudonym “Fischer,” Kujau tells Heidemann that the diaries were included in the chests of Hitler's belongings that were lost after the plane carrying them from Berlin to Berchtesgaden in the waning days of the war crashed in the Heidenholz Forest in what later became East Germany.

Heidemann, who was obsessed with the Nazis (he purchased Hermann Göring's yacht and even had an affair with Göring’s daughter), believed that Kujau had acquired the greatest historical find of the century.

Heidemann convinces Stern to pay "Fischer" handsomely for the diaries, which the magazine did, ultimately spending 9.3 million Marks.

In their eagerness to publish, Stern overlooked some glaringly obvious red flags that the diaries were fakes.

When forging the diaries, Kujau included Hitler's initials on covers using Old English engraver's letters. Alas, the forger goofed. Instead of using the Old English "A" in "AH," Kujau affixed the Old English "F."

[The scene in the miniseries where Kujau and his wife realize the error is pretty funny.]

There was another sign that the entries were not written by Hitler's hand, namely the contents.

Kujau forged the diaries so quickly that he filled them with any ridiculous thought that stomped through his head, including an entry in which Hitler notes that Eva Braun told him he had bad breath.

Worse still, when confirming the authenticity of the handwriting, Stern had the experts review only a single page from one diary which they compared to another sample of Hitler's handwriting.

But the sample used for comparison was a forgery created by none other than Konrad Kujau.

Unsurprisingly, the experts deemed the handwriting authentic.

But Stern was racing against leaks, so they rushed the authentication process to get to publication before another outlet could scoop their big scoop.

Finally, on April 25, 1983, Stern held a press conference unveiling their supposed "historic" find. But by then, the experts were already voicing doubts about the authenticity of the Hitler Diaries.

Two weeks later, after conducting a thorough investigation that should have happened before Stern spent nine million marks, the German Federal Archives concluded that the Hitler Diaries were nothing but "clumsy fakes."

Kujau and Heidemann were arrested in 1984. Both were convicted of fraud in 1985 and sentenced to over 4 years in prison.

You can see why this story might make for a good miniseries.

And it is good.

The writing is clever and funny. The various subplots are deftly woven together to move the main plot forward. And the acting is top-notch, particularly Moritz Bleibtreu's portrayal of the henpecked, devil-may-care forger Konrad Kujau. Gerd Heidemann is played by actor Lars Eidinger who is excellent at capturing the arrogance and foolhardiness of the over-eager journalist.

While "Faking Hitler" is in German (natürlich!) with English subtitles, don't let the subtitles stop you from watching it.

Admittedly, Germans tend to talk faster than Ben Shapiro. But I was still able to keep up with the subtitles.

Though, I did have to hit the Pause every time someone texted me since reading a text message and subtitles simultaneously is impossible. I almost considered copying and pasting the same reply to each text: "Busy reading subtitles at the moment. Text you back later."

If all German TV is as good as "Faking Hitler," I think it might be worth it to brush up on my very rusty German to watch more of it.

If you have a free evening and want something good to watch, "Faking Hitler" might be just the ticket.

It's available on AcornTV.