Customer Reviews

Selling Hitler [VHS]

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What if Adolf Hitler kept a diary? What would it say? Would it give an excuse - a hint of reason - for why he did what he did? And if there was a diary, how much would the world media pay for an artifact all the world wants to see?

"Selling Hitler" is a very stylish 4-hour British miniseries of just such a story. As insane as it seems now, the story is true. It happened in 1985, and if you're too young to remember, I will not give away the ending. The fun is in the telling, with corporate greed battling the ethics of good journalism, with common sense flying out the window.

Jonathan Pryce is wonderful as unstable journalist Gerd Heidemann, obsessed with both the good life and Nazi memorobilia. Heidemann acquires Hermann Goering's old yacht, but his Stern Magazine editors demand a productive story. That story leaps when he meets shady Conrad Fischer - a smart man with access to Hitler diaries. Heidemann has the bait, his editors take the hook. Then it gets rather complicated.

No action scenes, but the film digs up plenty of tension. The action is in the passion. Everyone in this story wants the Diaries on their terms at their price. Boardroom negotiations turn into smiley warfare, promotions and threats. The atmosphere is so crazed that even discredited English historian David Irving makes a memorable appearance.

At 3 1/2 hours, the delight in detail can swamp you - Rupert Murdoch vs. Newsweek, Newsweek vs. Stern Magazine, editors against each other, journalists against sources, forgers against sources, David Irving against everybody - "Selling Hitler" is a cutting character study of paranoia, hucksters and good old scheming. Perhaps it's better to watch this over 2 days. Or not - I watch it straight through every time, exhausted but grinning. The pace is excellent.

Still, I hope this film will find a DVD release, as that could eliminate my only complaint. The video print for this film is so-so, with slightly muffled sound, and visuals that seem underlit. This is a non-issue in the second half - much of which takes place in static media corporation light - but more so in the shadowy creepy early half. The film clearly wasn't released this way - DVD would be a good excuse to set this right. Still, "Selling Hitler" is perfect ammunition against those who say "Masterpiece Theater" is the best British TV has to offer. Highly recommended.

A tawdry and twisted boardroom farce and journalistic spoof. Top notch performances throughout. Equal in caliber in every way to Robert Harris' book, which is a tremendous beach read with serious message. It's chilling to think that the history of Nazi Germany was almost re-written by a drunken gun-nut forger and his emotionally-unhinged dupe. Although very talky, it never drags. Pacing is carefully managed and a four-hour movie goes by quickly. Owing to the length, there is more than enough technical detail about business negotiations, document forensics, historical research, and tabloid journalism to satisfy any geek, but it's never overdone.

It also has willfully goofy moments that leaven a ghastly subject with highly-appropriate satirical humor.

An interesting black comedy about a man who hears rumours of lost Hitler diaries, and his growing obsession to have these objects. Based on a true story of a German reporter, he eventually gets his magazine to shell out the money to purchase these documents. Of course he is soon to discover their are more, along with paintings and other items. He becomes submerged in a strange subculture of collectors, eventually purchasing Goering's boat and seducing his grown daughter. The diaries turn out to be frauds and he looses it all. An interesting commentary on the continuing interest in Hitler and the Third Reich.

Hitler's personal diary accounts would be so historically enlightening they became the $4,000,000.00 hoax of the century. The lost diaries were found, as documented in the true story and book by Robert Harris, "SELLING HITLER." It is true, the story, well...the story of the hoax. The hoax was true, and embarrassed many in the publishing business, as well as some historians and experts. The diaries were faked. Now, this never before seen in the US, miniseries shows on a 2-disc set what happened. But it's presented in a comedy dramatic farce as believable-unbelievable as the original true account.

The story trifles through the life of The Bloodhound (a.k.a. Gerd Heidemann, played by Jonathan Pryce) and his less than successful role of journalist for 'Stern' magazine. Until he stumbles upon the diaries, and more. The honest-fraud of a man (you never know for sure) with his lovely wife, Gina (Alison Doody) go from a life-style of 'want' to a life of luxury. The change is quick after Gerd convinces his publication firm's money-men to open their purse for the scoop of the century. Not only are the diaries, constantly growing in quantity, found, but art painted by Hitler, a sequel to "Mein Kamph", the suicide gun, and even an Adolf opera, "Wieland the Blacksmith". Sound too far fetched? It was.

The DVD story actually makes the viewer feel they are watching a dramatization of a documentary. The reminders of spoof, hoax, & farce come in the form of background vocals of really bad, annoying yodeling, at is heard at the most improbable moments. Also woven into the intrigue, suspense, and mystery is segments where the two leads of "SELLING HITLER" become opera stars performing Hitler's opera bouffe. The scenes and music from the opera remind one of "Monty Python" style of classic music. Costumes appear to be from a Beowulf-StarWars-WonderWoman style. Satirically silly spectacular. It is the clash between portions that seem realistic and the extreme exaggeration of other parts that make this 5-part experience fun.

You get the factual "aftermath of the Hitler diaries" as a bonus and discover what happened to the characters of the hoax in real life. Winners and losers. Most that were involved lost, big-time. Bonus also includes SUBTITLES.

What a humorous way to present an actual series of events that proved not to be so journalistic-ally funny in the 1980s.
EPISODE 1-Gerd grabs the scoop of his life--Hitler's diary. He will soon be top dog at Stern. He buys Carin II, a yacht.
2-Stern pays for the diaries with Gerd's assurances. Unbelievable artifacts and personal items continue to be revealed & purchased--for hefty sums.
3-Stern management plans marketing. Historian David Irving hears of the diaries and is a bit skeptic.
4-Rupert Murdoch, publisher, gets involved securing rights. Authenticity is again disputed. Experts approve, except for a forensic check needed on the age of the paper.
5-Plans begin to deflate. Business deals crash. Murdock gets cagey, hedges, and Stern has a press melt down.

Dramatized renditions of true past events are often very intriguing, and this was no exception. Jonathan Pryce was excellent as a hero-worshiping dupe who fell for a well-conceived scam about the existence of Hitler's alleged diaries, which were nothing but forgeries. He actually led a major German magazine into dumping a bundle of cash to obtain the rights, only to realize in the end that they had bought and published a set of utter lies. The fact that it really happened makes the story even more interesting.

Konrad "Connie" Fischer (Alexei Sayle), a.k.a. Konrad Kujau, was a con man who knew his mark. A "con man" or "confidence man" is a sophisticated cheat who uses fraud to deceive a mark out of his or her money. In this case, the mark was the international press. Gerd Heidemann, a journalist for the German magazine Stern, was facing a stalled career. He became the perfect target for a series of hoaxes known as the Hitler Diaries. This film portrays one of the greatest literary cons of the 20th century.

Heidemann needed something to jump-start his writing career to get back on track. In the series, he is portrayed as something of an amateur war scholar who enjoys collecting artifacts once owned by tyrants of infamous regimes. First, he buys Hermann Göring's yacht which looks like it might have come out of the Battle of the Bulge. Göring, the most eccentric and grandiose of Hitler's inner circle, was head of the Luftwaffe, the German Air Force during World War II. The journalist invests thousands of German marks to restore the vessel in hopes to invite former Nazis to board and tell stories about their experiences as budding Hitler youths. The boat does draw the former Nazis like a magnet, but the magazine Stern is unimpressed with Heidemann's results. They want something with more meat.

Heidemann then has a chance meeting with a Nazi memorabilia collector and sees an example of a supposed diary written by Hitler. After much persistence, the collector finally reveals his source, Konrad Fischer, a militaria dealer in Stuttgart. However, the collector balks at introducing them, but now the journalist has a name. Another of Heidemann's colleagues meets Fischer at a drinking party full of former Nazi sympathizers. They take old American songs and "arianize" them.

Heidemann finally meets Fischer and wants to see if there are more diaries with the possibility of acquiring them. Fischer shows him a few volumes. Convinced of their authenticity, Heidemann gets financing from his publication. Asked how he acquired them, Fischer tells him a story, which is a vital part of any con game. Fischer claims they are from his brother who is a high-ranking officer in East Germany which was then under the Soviet Iron Curtain. The diaries and other material were supposedly retrieved from a plane which crashed in 1945 containing much Nazi material, including paintings and supposedly an opera by Hitler. The diaries are smuggled out of East Germany to West Germany aboard a truck hauling pianos between the countries. Fischer finally agrees to give Heidemann several diaries for the princely sum of 200,000 marks per volume, about US $250,000 in 2010. Essentially, Fischer sells them to Heidemann who in turn sells them to Stern for a profit. Once the first sale is made, the hoax has been engaged, and Heidemann returns frequently with more money for more diaries. By the end, there will be 58 diaries in all.

Heidemann makes money as the go-between and becomes a major player in the publication. Stern is convinced they will make a fortune in their own publication plus they will sell the rights to international press markets, such as those owned by Rupert Murdoch and Newsweek in the US. Everyone is happy. Except there is only one problem. The diaries are complete fakes, forged by Fischer in a back room with a calligraphic pen and a host of literature regarding the Nazis which could be found at any library. There is no "brother" in East Germany and no evidence that the crashed plane contained the material supposedly found there by peasants.

However, handwriting experts and other scholars are convinced of their authenticity. Will this be the greatest literary find of the century, or the worst literary con played on the press who wanted to feed the public's continued appetite for all things regarding Hitler and the Nazis in Germany? A compelling chronicle of events of the Hitler Diaries, with strange Monty Python-esque interludes with Pryce looking like a character out of a Wagnerian opera. Not to be missed for those who like hoaxes and Hitler.

Don't be fooled in to buying the Dutch DVD release or the Canadian VHS release they both have 50 minutes cut out of the first three episodes, but the great news is it has finally been released uncut on DVD by Acorn Media. The Acorn Media 2 DVD set is the original broadcast version that was 5 episodes that each ran 50 minutes each (250 minutes total). I don't think it has been remastered, but it looks pretty good and is a big improvement on the old releases. This is my favorite mini-series of the 90's and it's hard to believe it never aired in the U.S. It's got a great cast and award winning production design and is probably the best mini-series you never got to see.