The Stumblng Tumblr

• coincidence again dictates posting something
• the above image from here is of Madame de Maintenon, said here to have been “the morganatic second wife of King Louis XIV of France”
• the British author, Veronica Buckley, wrote a biography of Madame de Maintenon, which biography was to be released on MAY 05
• however, the book is now not to be published until later in the summer, the reason being that the author relied in part in writing the book on a French document known since 1998 to have been a fake and the book is to be rewritten to omit reference to the fake document
• the above account of events comes from this story by Claire Armitstead; she begins the story as follows:

In scholarship, there are errors and there are huge, hideous, reputation-wrecking blunders, which often seem to involve authentication of newly discovered “historical” documents. Think Hugh Trevor-Roper and the Hitler diaries.

• funny she should say “Think Hugh Trevor-Roper and the Hitler diaries”, because that’s exactly what the Stumblng Tumblr did a few hours ago when he read this story
• according to it:

A quarter of a century ago, German reporter Gerd Heidemann stunned the world by claiming he had unearthed Hitler’s diaries. Within two weeks, his career was in tatters after it emerged they had been forged by an antique dealer. He never recovered from the scandal.

…

Heidemann was convicted of embezzlement after being accused of billing the magazine for more than the diaries actually cost. He spent time in jail and today lives alone in a cramped Hamburg apartment on €350 a month with €700,000 of debts. Now 76, he is shunned by former colleagues who have not forgiven him for one of of the greatest media debacles of all time.

“I was the big scapegoat for them. They all ganged up on me. There was a lot of envy and schadenfreude involved,” he told the newspaper Bild in an interview published on Tuesday. “At last star reporter Heidemann had made a mistake.”

…

Heidemann always maintained that he was fooled by [the forger] Kujau, who spent three years in jail for his fraud and who thrived after his release, becoming a media celebrity with regular appearances on chat shows where he would display his signature-forging skills. Kujau died in 2000.

• though the story about Heidemann doesn’t mention Trevor-Roper, you can find an account of his involvement in the matter here; his vouching for the authenticity of the fake diaries is described as “the nadir of his career”; we’re also told that, “It was after this incident … that Private Eye nicknamed Trevor-Roper … Very-Ropey.”