Schtonk! is a 1992 German satirical film which retells the story of the 1983 Hitler Diaries hoax. It was written and directed by Helmut Dietl.
DVD cover
The Hitler Diaries were a series of sixty volumes of journals purportedly written by Adolf Hitler, but forged by Konrad Kujau between 1981 and 1983. The diaries were purchased in 1983 for 9.3 million Deutsche Marks by the West German news magazine Stern, which sold serialisation rights to several news organisations. One of the publications involved was The Sunday Times, who asked their independent director, the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, to authenticate the diaries; he did so, pronouncing them genuine. At the press conference to announce the publication, Trevor-Roper announced that on reflection he had changed his mind, and other historians also raised questions concerning their validity. Rigorous forensic analysis, which had not been performed previously, quickly confirmed that the diaries were fakes.
"Hitler's diaries discovered". Stern's front page on 28 April 1983
General Hans Baur, Hitler's personal pilot
Rupert Murdoch, the owner of The Sunday Times, in 2007
Eberhard Jäckel, the historian who initially thought that Hitler's poems and the diaries were genuine, but changed his mind