5. Money for Old Roper

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It’s spring 1983 and Stern magazine’s inner circle is making frenzied preparations to launch its scoop of the century. Deals are being cut in media empires from London to Paris to New York. The Times and Sunday Times, newly acquired by Rupert Murdoch, are keen. Murdoch wants a quick authentication and calls in Britain’s foremost historian, Hugh Trevor-Roper. He accepts the mission and flies out to Zurich where the diaries are now locked away in a bank vault. Trevor-Roper has just a few hours to make his judgement. Meanwhile, TV journalist, Barbara Dickmann, has been commissioned by Stern to make a promotional film starring Gerd Heidemann about his big find. Dickmann is taken around the homes of old Nazis where Heidemann receives a warm welcome. Even more alarmingly, he starts telling Dickmann that he’s on speaking terms with a senior Nazi who died in 1945. Writer and broadcaster Andrew Hunter Murray uncovers last century’s biggest ever publishing scandal, a forgery which rocked the world and destroyed reputations. It’s a tale of greed, obsession and mass delusion. It includes Hermann Göring’s yacht, Nazi-themed honeymoons, Idi Amin’s underpants, and more details almost too unbelievable for words. Andrew interviews the people who were there as the diaries were announced to the world, and as the story fell apart - the archivist tasked with authenticating the diaries in Germany, the TV producer led around the homes of retired Nazis to film a promotional documentary for the scoop, and the Fleet Street editor given 24 hours to create a world-beating story based on fraudulent material. In our own time of AI, fake news and disinformation, are there any lessons we can take from the greatest hoax of the last 50 years? Gerd Heidemann tapes part of the Gerd Heidemann collection, Hoover Institute, copyright Stanford University. Presenter: Andrew Hunter Murray Producer: Ruth Abrahams Story Editor: Andrew Dickson Sound Design: Joel Cox Mix Engineer: Nigel Appleton Executive Producers: David Prest and Robert Nicholson Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke A Whistledown production for BBC Sounds and Radio 4