Gerd Heidemann

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Gerd Heidemann (born December 4, 1931 in Altona ) is a former German reporter for Stern magazine . He became widely known after he had acquired the " Hitler Diaries " on behalf of the Stern magazine , which, as it turned out soon after the sensational publication by Stern , had been produced by the art forger Konrad Kujau .

Life

Heidemann reported for Stern from many theaters of war (Biafra, Angola, Mozambique, Burundi, Guinea-Bissau, Uganda, Congo) and saved the lives of war reporter Randolph Braumann and sixteen other hostages during the Black September uprising in Amman in 1970 . About his - meanwhile controversial - research on B. Traven he published the book Postlagernd Tampico in 1977 . The research resulted in the five-part television documentary drama Im Busch von Mexico - Das Rätsel B. Traven (directed by Jürgen Goslar ), in which Heidemann played himself.

Heidemann became known for reporting on Siegfried Müller , known as Congo Müller, during Operation Tshuapa together with Stern reporter Ernst Petry; the tape recordings were first used for a series of articles in Stern and later sold to the GDR filmmaker Walter Heynowski, who used the material to assemble the documentary " Kommando 52 ", which premiered on November 15, 1965 in Leipzig at the International Film Festival.

Heidemann had a relationship with Edda Göring , the daughter of Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring , for five years, from 1976 to 1981 .

Hitler diaries

Gerd Heidemann - at the beginning of the eighties he earned 10,500 marks (today approx. 11,500 €) a month at Stern - presented his "sensational find" on April 25, 1983 at a press conference. Three days later, the star began to partially print the diaries. Heidemann had received the diaries from Konrad Kujau . After the discovery of the scandal surrounding the forged Hitler diaries, Heidemann was dismissed from the Stern and arrested on suspicion of fraud following a criminal complaint by Stern founder Henri Nannen . In July 1985 he was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison by the Hamburg district court. According to the court, he had embezzled several million DM. The publisher Gruner + Jahr , in which the star appears, gave Heidemann 9.3 million DM for the purchase of the diaries. However, Konrad Kujau claimed in court that he had only received part of the money from Gerd Heidemann. Tapes that were supposed to exonerate Heidemann were not allowed to be played in court because no judicial approval was available for the telephone recordings. His request for revision was rejected in 1986 without explanation. Heidemann spent his imprisonment in an open prison .

Kujau's niece later announced her assumption that Heidemann had probably not embezzled any money.

In the satirical film version Schtonk! the Gerd Heidemann role of the scandal reporter Hermann Willié is played by Götz George . Gerd Heidemann himself took on two extras. Heidemann is portrayed by Jonathan Pryce in the British television series Hitler For Sale , based on the nonfiction book by Robert Harris .

Carin II

On January 28, 1973, Heidemann bought the luxury yacht Carin II (then Theresia ), which had previously belonged to Hermann Göring . Heidemann tried to restore it to its original state of construction at considerable financial expense while modernizing it at the same time. According to his own statements, Heidemann invested a good one million DM by 1985.

On it he received numerous prominent artists, politicians, personalities of contemporary history and journalists. The last guests on board were representatives of the Gruner + Jahr publishing house and the head of the Stern für Zeitgeschichte, Thomas Walde , at the beginning of April 1981 . The background to the meeting was the discovery of the alleged Hitler diaries and their planned publication. After his conviction, Heidemann was no longer financially able to maintain the yacht. It was therefore foreclosed by Deutsche Bank in August 1985 and sold to the Egyptian businessman Mustafa Karim for DM 270,000.

Stasi accusations

In 2002 in the news magazine Der Spiegel allegations were made against Heidemann that he had been an informant for the Ministry of State Security for 33 years under the code name "Gerhard" . Heidemann admitted that he was approached by a Stasi officer in 1953 when he applied for a visa to the World Youth Festival in Bucharest in East Berlin. After his return to Hamburg, he immediately reported this to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. “The President of the State Office asked me to keep in touch with the Stasi. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution was also brought in, as well as the British ”.

Prizes and awards

  • 1965: World Press Photo , 1st place in the Photo Stories category ; Photo report Congo

Works

  • Post restante Tampico - The adventurous search for B. Traven . Blanvalet, Munich 1977, ISBN 3-7645-0591-5 .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ jungemedienhamburg.wordpress.com: Gerd Heidemann the sniffer dog / A former war and star reporter at Stern (part 3)
  2. ↑ Ulrich Schnappauf: "We wanted it to be real". In: FAZ . April 24, 2008, p. 40 , accessed June 17, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Former head physician in Celle charged with 12 killings. (No longer available online.) In: Cellesche Zeitung . June 2, 2010, archived from the original on March 18, 2016 ; Retrieved June 17, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cellesche-zeitung.de
  4. ↑ a b Klaus Brinkbäumer, Steffen Winter: Journalists: Then you're done . In: Der Spiegel . No. 31 , 2002, p. 78-83 ( online ).
  5. ↑ Gisela Sonneburg: The black sheep in wolf's clothing . In: the daily newspaper . June 7, 2003, accessed June 17, 2015 .
  6. ↑ Uncle Konrad's last hit. In: Berliner Morgenpost . June 5, 2003, accessed June 17, 2015 .
  7. ↑ Cf. Michael Seuffert: The scandal surrounding the Hitler diaries , Frankfurt a. M. 2008, ISBN 978-3-502-15119-7 , p. 307.
  8. ↑ Andreas Förster: Whose informer was the informer? Gerd Heidemann defends himself against Stasi allegations. In: Berliner Zeitung . August 21, 2002, accessed June 17, 2015 .
  9. ↑ 1965 Photo Contest . In: World Press Photo by GH ( worldpressphoto.org [accessed March 15, 2019]).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Heidemann, Gerd
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German reporter
DATE OF BIRTH December 4, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Altona