On this day: Hitler Diaries revealed as hoax

After consideration, he said they were the real thing, prompting the Times to run a world exclusive. But he subsequently said he was not certain, telling a news conference: "I regret that the normal methods of historical verification have been sacrificed to the requirements of the journalistic scoop."

Within days the diaries were revealed as fakes, written on paper not in use until after the war and with modern ink. They had been forged by an art-dealer from Stuttgart called Konrad Kujau who had been paid more than £3 million by Stern. Heidemann and Kujau were later convicted of fraud and jailed.

What the JC said before the hoax was revealed: Most commentators declared that historians and other experts, including psychologists, should, now work on the alleged diaries to establish whether they were authentic…commentators fear that publication of the diaries might serve "white washing" tendencies, not only in Nazi and neo-Nazi circles, but also sections of the German masses, in an attempt to make Hitler look less criminal and less inhumane that historical research has made him.

See more from the JC archives here.