Selling Hitler
Encyclopedia
Selling Hitler is a 1991 ITV
television drama-documentary mini-series about the Hitler Diaries
hoax and was based on Robert Harris
's 1986 book Selling Hitler: The Story of the Hitler Diaries.
(Jonathan Pryce
), a war correspondent
and reporter
with the German magazine Stern
, makes what he believes is the literary and historical scoop of the century, the personal diaries of Adolf Hitler
. Over the next two years, Heidemann and the senior management figures at Stern secretly pay 10 million German mark
s to a mysterious 'Dr Fischer'
(Alexei Sayle
) for the sixty volumes of 'Hitler's diaries', plus a "special volume" about Rudolf Hess
's flight to the United Kingdom
, covering the period from 1932 to 1945. Some of the money is made as payment to 'Dr Fischer', but the larger proportion goes into Heidemann's own pocket, to finance his extravagant lifestyle and collection of World War II
memorabilia
, including the yacht of Hermann Göring
.
However, to the dismay of all, including eminent historian
s such as Hugh Trevor-Roper (Alan Bennett
) who verified the diaries are authentic, after the first extract is published it is revealed that the diaries are crude forgeries, faked by Stuttgart
criminal Konrad Kujau
.
and starred Jonathan Pryce
as Gerd Heidemann
, Alexei Sayle
as Konrad Kujau
, Tom Baker
as Gruner + Jahr
Chairman Manfred Fischer, Alan Bennett
as Hugh Trevor-Roper, Roger Lloyd Pack
as David Irving
, Richard Wilson as Henri Nannen
, Alison Doody
as Gina Heidemann, Julie T. Wallace
as Edith Lieblang, Peter Capaldi
as Thomas Walde, John Shrapnel
as Gerd Schulte-Hillen, Philip Fox
as Leo Pesch, John Boswall
as August Priesack, John Paul
as Karl Wolff
, Barry Humphries
as Rupert Murdoch
and Devon Scott
as Barbara Dickmann. The series, which The Guardian
described as "a rollicking comedy with black edges," was released on Region 1 DVD in July 2010.
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
television drama-documentary mini-series about the Hitler Diaries
Hitler Diaries
In April 1983, the West German news magazine Stern published excerpts from what purported to be the diaries of Adolf Hitler, known as the Hitler Diaries , which were subsequently revealed to be forgeries...
hoax and was based on Robert Harris
Robert Harris (novelist)
Robert Dennis Harris is an English novelist. He is a former journalist and BBC television reporter.-Early life:Born in Nottingham, Harris spent his childhood in a small rented house on a Nottingham council estate. His ambition to become a writer arose at an early age, from visits to the local...
's 1986 book Selling Hitler: The Story of the Hitler Diaries.
Plot
In 1981, Gerd HeidemannGerd Heidemann
Gerd Heidemann is a German journalist best known for his role in the publication of purported Hitler Diaries that were subsequently proved to be forgeries....
(Jonathan Pryce
Jonathan Pryce
Jonathan Pryce, CBE is a Welsh stage and film actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime partner English actress Kate Fahy in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s...
), a war correspondent
War correspondent
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
and reporter
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
with the German magazine Stern
Stern (magazine)
Stern is a weekly news magazine published in Germany. It was founded in 1948 by Henri Nannen, and is currently published by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. In the first quarter of 2006, its print run was 1.019 million copies and it reached 7.84 million readers according to...
, makes what he believes is the literary and historical scoop of the century, the personal diaries of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
. Over the next two years, Heidemann and the senior management figures at Stern secretly pay 10 million German mark
German mark
The Deutsche Mark |mark]], abbreviated "DM") was the official currency of West Germany and Germany until the adoption of the euro in 2002. It is commonly called the "Deutschmark" in English but not in German. Germans often say "Mark" or "D-Mark"...
s to a mysterious 'Dr Fischer'
Konrad Kujau
Konrad Paul Kujau was an illustrator and forger who became famous in 1983 as the creator of the so-called Hitler Diaries, for which he received DM 2.5 million from a person who in turn sold it for DM 9.3 million to the magazine Stern.-Early life:"Konny" Kujau was one of five children of Richard...
(Alexei Sayle
Alexei Sayle
Alexei David Sayle is a British stand-up comedian, actor and author. He was a central part of the alternative comedy circuit in the early 1980s. He was voted the 18th greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-ups in 2007...
) for the sixty volumes of 'Hitler's diaries', plus a "special volume" about Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess was a prominent Nazi politician who was Adolf Hitler's deputy in the Nazi Party during the 1930s and early 1940s...
's flight to the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, covering the period from 1932 to 1945. Some of the money is made as payment to 'Dr Fischer', but the larger proportion goes into Heidemann's own pocket, to finance his extravagant lifestyle and collection of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
memorabilia
Souvenir
A souvenir , memento, keepsake or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. The term souvenir brings to mind the mass-produced kitsch that is the main commodity of souvenir and gift shops in many tourist traps around the world...
, including the yacht of Hermann Göring
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...
.
However, to the dismay of all, including eminent historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
s such as Hugh Trevor-Roper (Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett is a British playwright, screenwriter, actor and author. Born in Leeds, he attended Oxford University where he studied history and performed with The Oxford Revue. He stayed to teach and research mediaeval history at the university for several years...
) who verified the diaries are authentic, after the first extract is published it is revealed that the diaries are crude forgeries, faked by Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
criminal Konrad Kujau
Konrad Kujau
Konrad Paul Kujau was an illustrator and forger who became famous in 1983 as the creator of the so-called Hitler Diaries, for which he received DM 2.5 million from a person who in turn sold it for DM 9.3 million to the magazine Stern.-Early life:"Konny" Kujau was one of five children of Richard...
.
Cast
The five-part series was directed by Alastair ReidAlastair Reid (director)
Alastair Reid was a British television director whose credits include the TV series Traffik and Tales of the City....
and starred Jonathan Pryce
Jonathan Pryce
Jonathan Pryce, CBE is a Welsh stage and film actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime partner English actress Kate Fahy in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s...
as Gerd Heidemann
Gerd Heidemann
Gerd Heidemann is a German journalist best known for his role in the publication of purported Hitler Diaries that were subsequently proved to be forgeries....
, Alexei Sayle
Alexei Sayle
Alexei David Sayle is a British stand-up comedian, actor and author. He was a central part of the alternative comedy circuit in the early 1980s. He was voted the 18th greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-ups in 2007...
as Konrad Kujau
Konrad Kujau
Konrad Paul Kujau was an illustrator and forger who became famous in 1983 as the creator of the so-called Hitler Diaries, for which he received DM 2.5 million from a person who in turn sold it for DM 9.3 million to the magazine Stern.-Early life:"Konny" Kujau was one of five children of Richard...
, Tom Baker
Tom Baker
Thomas Stewart "Tom" Baker is a British actor. He is best known for playing the fourth incarnation of the Doctor in the science fiction television series Doctor Who, a role he played from 1974 to 1981.-Early life:...
as Gruner + Jahr
Gruner + Jahr
Gruner + Jahr GmbH & Co. KG is the largest European printing and publishing firm. Its headquarters is in Hamburg, Germany.-History:Originally founded on August 1, 1948 as the Henri Nannen publishing house, Gruner + Jahr was created in 1965 from a merger by acquisition, by publishers John Jahr Sr....
Chairman Manfred Fischer, Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett is a British playwright, screenwriter, actor and author. Born in Leeds, he attended Oxford University where he studied history and performed with The Oxford Revue. He stayed to teach and research mediaeval history at the university for several years...
as Hugh Trevor-Roper, Roger Lloyd Pack
Roger Lloyd Pack
Roger Lloyd-Pack is an English actor known for his roles in the TV shows The Vicar of Dibley, Only Fools and Horses and The Old Guys.-Career:...
as David Irving
David Irving
David John Cawdell Irving is an English writer,best known for his denial of the Holocaust, who specialises in the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany...
, Richard Wilson as Henri Nannen
Henri Nannen
Henri Nannen was a famous German journalist....
, Alison Doody
Alison Doody
-Early life:The youngest of three children, she was born in Dublin, Ireland. Her mother, Joan, was a beauty therapist, and her father, Patrick, worked in the property business and farmed...
as Gina Heidemann, Julie T. Wallace
Julie T. Wallace
Julie Therese Wallace is an English actress.-Biography:Julie T. Wallace is the daughter of the late Scottish actor Andrew Keir, and is the sister of the actors Sean Keir and Deirdre Keir...
as Edith Lieblang, Peter Capaldi
Peter Capaldi
Peter Dougan Capaldi is an Academy Award and BAFTA award winning Scottish actor and film director. In 1995, his short film Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life won the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film...
as Thomas Walde, John Shrapnel
John Shrapnel
John Shrapnel is an English actor.Shrapnel was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, the son of Mary Lillian Myfanwy and journalist/author Norman Shrapnel....
as Gerd Schulte-Hillen, Philip Fox
Philip Fox (actor)
Philip "Phil" Fox is an English film and television actor, known particularly for comic roles. His appearances include Genie in the House, Maurice, People Like Us, Waking the Dead, Maxwell, Midsummer Murders and Foyle's War...
as Leo Pesch, John Boswall
John Boswall
John Boswall was a British actor probably best known for playing Wyvern in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest....
as August Priesack, John Paul
John Paul (actor)
John Paul was a British actor.He is best known for his television roles, particularly as Dr Spencer Quist in Doomwatch and Marcus Agrippa in I, Claudius , both for BBC Television....
as Karl Wolff
Karl Wolff
Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff was a high-ranking member of the Nazi Schutzstaffel , ultimately holding the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS. He became Chief of Personal Staff to the Reichsführer and SS Liaison Officer to Hitler until his replacement in 1943...
, Barry Humphries
Barry Humphries
John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE is an Australian comedian, satirist, dadaist, artist, author and character actor, best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and "gigastar", and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to the...
as Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....
and Devon Scott
Devon Scott
Devon Patricia Scott Elstob is a former American actress and youngest daughter of the late George C. Scott. She starred in the The Tony Randall Show, which ran from 1976 to 1978.-Filmography:-External links:...
as Barbara Dickmann. The series, which The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
described as "a rollicking comedy with black edges," was released on Region 1 DVD in July 2010.
External links
- http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/selling_hitler/Selling Hitler reviewed on Rotten TomatoesRotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
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