Robert Harris - Selling Hitler

In 1979, unable to extend his borrowing any further, Heidemann resorted to a new tactic to raise money. On 23 May, despite his failure to write the promised Bord Gespräche , he signed another agreement with Gruner and Jahr. In return for a further 30,000 marks he now undertook to deliver three books: a study of Mussolini, to be written in collaboration with Erich Kuby; a volume of autobiography, with the working title Gerd Heidemann: My African Wars ; and a book about Nazi escape routes, SS Export .

The problem, as he confided to General Mohnke, was the cost of Carin II . He earned 9000 marks per month; the yacht alone took up 6000. In desperation, in June 1978, he finally decided he would have to sell her. He advertised her in the catalogue of the Munich auctioneers, Hermann, specialists in the sale of military memorabilia. His asking price was 1.1 million marks. The boat remained unsold. The consequences of this failure were to lead Heidemann directly to the Hitler diaries.

Mohnke suggested Heidemann try getting in touch with an acquaintance of his who might be able to help sell the yacht: a former junior member of the SS living in the town of Augsburg near Munich. His name was Jakob Tiefenthaeler.

Tiefenthaeler was fifty-three years old. He worked at the local US airbase where he was in charge of audio-visual instruction. He had an extensive network of old Nazi contacts, Mohnke, Wolff and Hans Baur among them. He was also deeply involved in the secretive world of Nazi memorabilia collectors, specializing himself in the acquisition of photographs from the Third Reich. At the beginning of 1979 Heidemann rang him. ‘He said he’d got my name and telephone number from General Mohnke,’ remembered Tiefenthaeler.

I’d known Mohnke for a long time. Heidemann said in the telephone conversation that Mohnke had told him that I might be able to find buyers for his yacht. I asked Heidemann to send me technical details and pictures of the ship and I said that I’d try to find somebody.

Heidemann complained sorrowfully to Tiefenthaeler that he couldn’t bear the thought of being parted from the yacht, that he’d turned it into a ‘perfect museum’ full of Goering treasures, but that the cost of berthing and insurance were such that he could no longer afford the luxury of keeping it.

Tiefenthaeler advertised the yacht in the United States for a price of 1.2 million marks. When this proved unsuccessful, he made contact with a millionaire Australian who ran a war museum in Sydney. Despite the fact that Heidemann twice dropped the price – first to 800,000 marks, then to 750,000 – the Australian pulled out. An Arab oil sheik from Abu Dhabi expressed an interest, but Heidemann was not keen: he told Tiefenthaeler he was worried that the yacht would be damaged in the hot sun. The Ugandan dictator Idi Amin sent a German mercenary, Rolf Steiner, to inspect the ship, but again the deal fell through. Amin would have loved to have cruised around Lake Victoria in Hermann Goering’s yacht, but the problems of transporting it to that landlocked country were felt to be insuperable.

While Tiefenthaeler was busy pursuing these potential foreign purchasers, he gave Heidemann the name of a wealthy south German collector of Nazi memorabilia who might be interested in buying some of the smaller Goering pieces. Accordingly, some time in 1979 – it is difficult to be sure of the precise date – Heidemann turned up in Stuttgart. Seven miles east of the city, in the quiet suburb of Waiblingen, he found a small engineering factory belonging to Fritz Stiefel; immediately next door to it was Stiefel’s house. He rang the bell and a thickset, taciturn man appeared.

According to Stiefel, Heidemann handed him a visiting card and introduced himself as a reporter from Stern . ‘He said that the reason for his visit was that he wanted to ask me if I was interested in buying the table silver from his yacht, the Carin II .’ Stiefel invited him in. Like some medieval pardoner peddling holy relics, Heidemann then laid out his wares. ‘There was a small silver sugar bowl, a silver water goblet and a gold coloured match-holder,’ recalled Stiefel. ‘The Goering family crest was engraved on all the objects.’ This trinketry appealed to Stiefel and he promptly bought it. ‘I can’t say exactly how much I paid for these objects,’ he claimed subsequently, with an unconvincing show of vagueness. ‘It was certainly over 1000 marks.’ Heidemann tried to tempt his customer into buying a couple of larger items. Stiefel was interested in the reporter’s expensive set of Goering table silver, but decided against taking it after consulting his wife. Nor did he want Goering’s ceremonial uniform which Heidemann also produced for his inspection.

Returning to Hamburg, impressed by Stiefel’s interest and by his obvious wealth, Heidemann telephoned Tiefenthaeler and suggested a new scheme: in return for an investment of 250,000 marks they should offer to make Stiefel a partner in the yacht. Tiefenthaeler promised to speak to Stiefel and shortly afterwards, towards the end of 1979, he rang Heidemann back. He was in a state of some excitement, having just been shown round Stiefel’s collection of Nazi mementoes; among them, he told the reporter, was a Hitler diary.

ON 6 JANUARY 1980, a few days after David Irving had passed on Martin Gilbert’s judgement that the Churchill–Mussolini correspondence was faked, Heidemann returned to Waiblingen to see Fritz Stiefel.

Heidemann opened the conversation by outlining his proposal that Stiefel should become part-owner of Carin II . In his quiet, urgent voice he conjured up a glowing vision of the future: the yacht, fully restored to her former splendour, would be permanently moored off the coast of ‘an island in the Atlantic’ (Heidemann’s suggestion was Jersey); it would be ‘a floating museum’ full of Nazi memorabilia, dedicated to the memory of Hermann Goering. Stiefel was unimpressed. ‘I turned him down flat,’ he said.

Disappointed in one fantasy, Heidemann grasped at another. Was there, he asked Stiefel, any truth in the rumour that he had a Hitler diary? The businessman, according to Heidemann, was ‘startled’ but after some hesitation agreed to show it to him.

Stiefel led Heidemann to an armoured steel door upon which was a large sign: ‘BEWARE. HIGH VOLTAGE. DANGER TO LIFE.’ Stiefel unlocked it, swung it open, and the two men stepped over the threshold.

Heidemann was later to tell colleagues of his astonishment at what he saw. The room was large and windowless. On display, in beautifully lit cabinets, was a staggering assortment of souvenirs from the Third Reich. There were Swastika flags, Nazi uniforms, photographs, paintings, drawings, books. In one corner was an exhibition of porcelain made by concentration camp inmates; in another, a collection of military decorations, including a Pour le Mérite . It had to rank as one of the largest private collections of its kind in Germany.

Stiefel handed Heidemann a slim, A4-sized book, with hard black covers and gothic initials in the bottom right-hand corner which Heidemann took to be ‘AH’. Stiefel allowed him to hold it briefly. He flicked through it. It covered the period from January to June 1935. There were a hundred or more lined pages; some were half full, some blank; some written in pencil, others in ink. Many of the pages bore Hitler’s signature. The writing itself was virtually indecipherable. After a few moments, Stiefel took it back and locked it up.

Heidemann began asking questions. Where did the book come from? Stiefel said it was salvaged by local peasants from a plane crash at the end of the war. Who gave it to him? A man in Stuttgart, replied Stiefel, who had relatives in senior positions in East Germany – no, he wouldn’t reveal his name. Were there more diaries? Stiefel said he understood there might be another twenty-six, each of them, like the one in his possession, covering a six-month period. That was all he could say.