Konrad Kujau

Konrad Kujau
Konrad Kujau in 1992
Born	Konrad Paul Kujau (1938-06-27)27 June 1938 Löbau, Nazi Germany
Died	12 September 2000(2000-09-12) (aged 62) Stuttgart, Germany
Nationality	German
Known for	Forging the "Hitler Diaries"
Website	kujau-archiv.de

Konrad Paul Kujau (27 June 1938 – 12 September 2000) was a German illustrator and forger. He became famous in 1983 as the creator of the so-called Hitler Diaries, for which he received DM 2.5 million from a person who in turn sold it for DM 9.3 million to the magazine Stern. The forgery resulted in a four-and-half year prison sentence.

"Konny" Kujau was born in Löbau, Nazi Germany, one of five children of Richard Kujau, a cobbler, and his wife, both of who had joined the Nazi Party in 1933. Kujau's early life was of unremitting poverty and his mother was obliged to send her children into orphanages for periods of time. The boy grew up believing in the Nazi ideals and idolising Adolf Hitler; the defeat to the Allies in 1945 and Hitler's suicide did not temper his enthusiasm for the Nazi cause. He held a series of menial jobs until 1957, when he was working as a waiter at the Löbau Youth Club and a warrant was issued for his arrest in connection with the theft of a microphone. In June he fled to Stuttgart, West Germany where he soon drifted into temporary menial work and petty crime. In 1959 he was fined 80 Marks (DM) for stealing tobacco; in 1960 he was sent to prison for nine months after being caught breaking into a storeroom to steal cognac; in 1961 he spent more time in prison after stealing five crates of fruit; six months later he was arrested after getting into a fight with his employer while employed as a cook in a bar.

In 1961 he began a relationship with Edith Lieblang, one of the waitresses at the bar where he was working. The couple moved to Plochingen and opened a dance bar, which was a modest success. Kujau began to create a fictional background for himself, telling people his real name was Peter Fischer, changing his date of birth by two years, and altering the history of his time in East Germany. by 1963 the bar began suffering financial difficulties, and the couple moved back to Stuttgart, where Kujau found work as a waiter. He also started his career as a counterfeiter, forging DM 27 worth of luncheon vouchers; he was caught and sentenced to five days in prison. On his release he and his wife formed the Lieblang Cleaning Company, although the company provided little income for them. In March 1968, at a routine check at Kujau's lodgings, the police established he was living under a false identity, after the name, address and date of birth details Kujau provided for the police were different to those on the papers he was carrying at the time. At the police station he offered a third set of details and a false explanation as to why he was masquerading under an assumed identity, but the subsequent fingerprint check confirmed he was Kujau. He was sent to Stuttgart's Stammheim Prison.