Robert Harris - Selling Hitler

When I tried to pressurize him further, he became quite irritated and said: ‘What is it that you want of me? I won’t tell you. I swear to you on the lives of my children that everything is in order. It has all been properly researched. The books are genuine. What more can you ask of me?’

Schulte-Hillen was once more struck by what seemed to him Heidemann’s obvious sincerity. ‘I too have children,’ he said afterwards. ‘Heidemann’s oath impressed me.’ He let the matter drop. In any case, under the terms of his contract, Heidemann had the right to keep the identity of his supplier secret. The managing director told the editors that there was nothing he could do. They would all have to trust Heidemann.

In London, Frank Giles, editor of the Sunday Times , summoned two of his senior colleagues, Hugo Young and Magnus Linklater, to his office. He was, recalled Linklater, ‘obviously very flustered’.

Giles was not a member of Murdoch’s inner circle. He had been only on the fringes of the group which negotiated to buy the diaries – vaguely aware of what was going on, unenthusiastic, yet comforted by his belief that they would be running in The Times. His sang froid had been shattered the previous day by a brisk, transatlantic announcement from Murdoch that the Hitler diaries were going to be serialized in the Sunday Times after all: now that Stern would be appearing on Monday, Sunday had become the perfect day to print the extracts. It would enable the paper to avoid the risk of rivals getting hold of advance copies of the German magazine and printing pirated extracts from the diaries twenty-four hours ahead of them.

Murdoch was not a proprietor who encouraged dissent. Even strong editors found it hard to stand up to him. Giles was not a strong editor. He was sixty-four years old, sleek and aristocratic, a lover of Glyndebourne, fine French wines and classical music which he listened to on his Sony Walkman. His relationship with Murdoch was akin to that between a rabbit and a stoat. The proprietor made no secret of his habit of ripping into Giles’s editorial decisions. He once announced jauntily to Harold Evans that he was ‘just going over to terrorize Frank’. Murdoch’s office on the sixth floor of The Times building looked directly across into Giles’s at the Sunday Times. Evans recalled how the Australian tycoon ‘would stand up with a big grin and with his fingers pointed like a pistol fire bang! bang!’ at Giles working with his back to the window. The subject of this imaginary target practice was in no position to stop Murdoch from doing what he wanted with his newspaper.

Giles told Young and Linklater that the Sunday Times would be serializing the Hitler diaries. They would prepare the ground on Sunday with extensive coverage of their discovery. The two men were ‘aghast’. How could Giles countenance something as irresponsible as running the diaries without allowing the paper’s own journalists to make independent checks? Had he not seen Knightley’s memorandum? Had he forgotten the Mussolini diaries?

Giles, according to Linklater, raised his hands to his ears.

‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want to hear about all that. The deal’s been signed and we’re going to have to do it.’

Minutes later, Arthur Brittenden, Times Newspapers’ Director of Corporate Relations (their press officer), announced that the Hitler diaries would be running in the Sunday Times. ‘It’s not been decided how many Sundays,’ he told the New York Times, ‘because the complete translation is not yet finished. But I think we’ll run it for two or three weeks, then there will be a gap and we’ll pick it up again.’

By coincidence, many of the leading characters in the British subplot of the affair came together for lunch on Friday at the Dorchester Hotel. The Dorchester was hosting the UK Press Awards, an annual ceremony at which Britain’s journalists present prizes to one another in recognition of their professional skill. Charles Douglas-Home was holding forth to a woman sitting next to him. ‘It’s just been announced,’ he told her. ‘It’s the greatest historical find of the century.’

Sitting at the table, Gitta Sereny of the Sunday Times asked what he was talking about.

‘The Hitler diaries,’ said Douglas-Home.

‘Are you running them?’ she asked.

‘No. You are.’

Sereny relayed the gist of this conversation to Phillip Knightley, sitting a few yards away. Knightley hurried back to the office and sought out Magnus Linklater. Linklater gloomily confirmed that the news was true. ‘ The Times is running an article by Trevor-Roper tomorrow saying they’re genuine. Why don’t you talk to him?’

It was 3 p.m. In the Master’s Lodge, Trevor-Roper was preparing for a visit to the opera when Knightley called him. The historian’s tone was confident and reassuring.

‘The one thing that impressed me most’, he told Knightley, ‘was the volume of the material. I asked myself whether it all could have been constructed out of the imagination and incidental sources. I decided that it could not.’

Knightley reminded him that there had been thirty volumes of the purported Mussolini diaries. Trevor-Roper was unperturbed: ‘I know Hitler’s handwriting. I know his signature. I know the changes in it between 1908 and his death. It seemed to me that an operation of forgery on that scale was heroic and unnecessary.’ He pointed out that they were not dealing with some shady characters operating on the fringes of the law, but with one of the wealthiest and most widely read magazines in Europe: ‘The directors of Stern , one must assume, do not engage in forgery.’

By the time he hung up, Knightley – who recorded the call – felt much happier. Trevor-Roper’s reputation was impeccable. It was inconceivable that he could be so emphatic about the diaries’ authenticity without good cause. ‘I must say,’ Knightley recalled, ‘he went a long way to convincing me.’

Trevor-Roper and his wife left the Master’s Lodge shortly after 3.30 p.m. to join a party of Cambridge dons and their families on an excursion to the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. The historian still felt fairly confident about his judgement of the diaries. But the conversation with Knightley had been vaguely disconcerting and as he settled down in his seat on the party’s private coach, somewhere in the recesses of his mind, something began to stir.

Three thousand miles away, America was waking up to the news of the diaries’ discovery. All the major US wire services were running the Stern announcement, and across New York, in the offices of publishers, agents and newspapers, telephones were ringing with demands for information.

At Bantam Books, Louis Wolfe confirmed to the New York Times that he had heard of the Hitler diaries. ‘An offer was made,’ he admitted, ‘but we were never sure exactly what was being offered, so it seemed much simpler to have our parent company handle it out of its group office in Munich. To the best of my knowledge no one in the United States has signed a contract to publish a book based on Hitler’s diaries.’ Wolfe’s Vice-President, Stuart Applebaum, was also fielding calls. ‘We have a great interest in the possibility of doing a book someday related to the diaries,’ he told the Washington Post , ‘but at this time we have no plans to publish one. Nor do we have any deal to do one.’

At ICM, Lynn Nesbit struggled to answer a deluge of questions. Yes, she had been hired to represent Stern. No, she was no longer their agent. Yes, she was paid a commission. No, she wouldn’t disclose the amount….