Historian back-tracks

Press, 27 April 1983, Page 8

Historian back-tracks

NZPA-Reuter Hamburg Serious doubts have been expressed about the authenticity of diaries said to have been written by Adolf Hitler, with historians voicing their misgivings at a press conference originally intended to promote the documents. Two prominent historians who attended the conference at the invitation of the West German magazine, “Stern,” publisher of the diaries, cast doubt on the documents and called for new investigations to establish whether they were genuine. Professor Hugh TrevorRoper, (Lord Dacre) of Britain, the author of a standard work on the Nazi dictator’s last days, said that he had earlier declared the diaries genuine in the • mistaken belief that there was definite proof they were the same documents as those found in the wreckage of a plane in 1945. He regretted that the normal methods of historical examination of the diaries had “to a certain extent been sacrificed to a journalistic scoop.” The focus had now shifted to the actual content of the diaries, he said. The second historian brought in by “Stern” for the press conference, Professor Gerhard Ludwig Weinberg, of the University of North Carolina, said that handwriting studies so far had been based not on the diaries themselves, but on documents found with them. Lord Dacre said that he regretted that a “Stern” reporter, Gerd Heidemann, who traced the diaries, had felt unable to reveal his source for the documents. As a result, the link between the diaries and the plane crash was for all practical purposes dissolved, he said. He called for a thorough study of the documents and said that Times Newspapers, on whose board he sits, would not publish the diaires — to which it has bought the British and Commonwealth rights — until it was sure they were genuine. Times Newspapers said that it would do everything it could to help if historians

needed more time to check their authenicity. “If Lord Dacre and other historians feel that they need time for further investigation, everything possible within the power of the ‘Sunday Times’ will be done to provide them with these facilities,” it said.

Mr Weinberg said that it was essential that substantial parts of the diaries should be checked by handwriting experts and historians. He was disturbed that no German experts on the Nazi era had been asked to study the material.

“The authentications which I have seen all pertain to handwriting on docu-

ments other than the diaries,” he said. The “Stern” editor, Mr Peter Koch, disputing Professor Weinberg’s assertions, said that one of the pages shown to handwriting experts, which concerned the flight of Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess, to Britain in 1941, had come from a special volume which formed an integral part of the diary series. •Four scientific studies had been conducted on the documents, three on the handwriting and one on the paper, but he admitted that no dating test had been performed on the ink and said that no such test was planned.

Meanwhile, a controversy developed over who had the right to pubish the diaries, with the state of Bavaria saying that it would claim copyright if they proved to be genuine. The state holds ths copyright to all the Nazi leader’s works. “Stern” said that it was absolutely convinced the diaries were genuine, and emphasised that it would continue with serialisation. The magazine also referred to a statement by Sir David English, editor-in-chief of two British newspapers, the “Mail on Sunday” and “Daily Mail,” who said that his group had been

offered the diaries. Sir David said that his organisation had been suspicious about the authenticity of the diaries and had stated it would publish them only if “Stern” agreed to indemnify the papers against the possibility that they were forged. Sir David said that “Stern” was unable to do that and talks had ended. But “Stern” said that it had not accepted Sir David’s offer because by that time it had already reached agreement with another British newspaper. It said that Sir David had never seen the diaries.