Anne Frank's diary - has it been claimed to be fake?

Factual Questions
1

In the “Was Jesus Jewish” thread, Shayna’s sig line, a quotation from Anne Frank’s diary, reminds me of something that I read many years ago.

I worked at a company in the late 1980s where, for some unknown reason, we kept on getting literature from a local hate group that insisted that the holocaust was a fake. These idiots (the institute for historical review) are still located in my neighbourhood.

In one of their pamphlets (I would read them out of idle curiosity), they claimed that the German magazine “Der Spiegel” had written an article (in 1980?) stating that the Anne Frank diaries were fake.

I dismissed it as nonsense, but I wonder if anyone else has heard of this supposed article in “Der Spiegel”?

Quand les talons claquent, l’esprit se vide.
Maréchal Lyautey

2

There is an exhibit at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam about people who have tried to prove that the diary is fake. They presented compelling evidence for the authenticity of the diary. I don’t recall who the “debunkers” were supposed to be.

3

I’ve never read “Der Spiegel” but my wife gets their catalog and she said there’s nothing in it about Anne Frank or the Holocaust, just a lot of clothes and stuff.

4

The problem was as I recall not about the diary being faked but some items not published. For instance it is reported that she was a lesbian and this is in the “unpublished” part of the diary.

Also the Franks weren’t as squeeky clean as the “published” diary makes out. Basically it’s a sin of ommission.

5

I remember reading something about unpublished parts, and what was mentioned was two short passages in which she describes attempts to masturbate: one in which she says it feels good to touch herself there (and no more specific than that) and another in which she says that she can just fit one finger into her vagina.

It’s understandable why that wouldn’t be in the movie version, but omitting them from the manuscript seems rather prudish, especially for Europeans.

The controversy wasn’t over the existence of the unpublished bits, but that they weren’t published at all. That argues against any serious doubt that the diary is real.

Never attribute to an -ism anything more easily explained by common, human stupidity.

6

They cut out stuff on lesbianism, masturbation, and Anne (in a fit of teenageism) hating her mother. I think that’s pretty much it.

7

Oh, and it was the father who cut that out, I believe. Especially the stuff about the mom, not respectful.

8

Our university had a plague of activity by the Holocaust Revisionists a few years ago when our Association for Campus Entertainment thought it would be an interesting intellectual excercise to invite David Irving to give his side of the story. They had no idea what they were getting into. When it was explained to them that Irving would use his appearance at the university to suggest that his views were accepted by academia, ACE withdrew their invitation. But the damage was already done. Suddenly, the campus was lousy with holocaust deniers, anti-semites and conspiracy theorists.

A local man who was a fan of Irving, and who once taught at our university before they found out that he was telling students the Holocaust never happened, rented the main lecture hall at our university center. Apparently, unless the space is already scheduled, they can’t deny a member of the right to rent it for any reason.

So, Irving came, and it was a circus. I was recruited by friends in the history department to stand in the lobby passing out bibliographies of reliable historical sources on the holocaust, though I was to pass them out without confessing which side I was on.

Unfortunately, I was confronted by an angry professor who threw my handout down on the ground. He was angry at me, and he kept asking, “Are you with them?” I said, “I’m just handing out this nice list of reliable historical sources…” But he kept asking me, accusingly, “Are you with them?”

One of my friends came to my rescue. She was the president of phi alpha theta, and no one questioned where she stood on the issue. But I was quite unraveled by the situation. Dr. Brindley seems not to remember it at all.

The controversy raged at our fairly quiet school for a couple of years. It made me realize that I’m glad I don’t go to a university full of activists.

9

Coldfire would be the one to know the Straight Dope on this, but IIRC there was a bit of hullaballoo last year because another few sides of the diary had been found, I think they described the relationship between Anne Frank’s parents as a little less than ideal. Well it turns out that the rights to any part of the diary rest with a foundation in Switzerland, and they took great exception to anybody publishing those pages, presumably because they reflected poorly on Anne Frank or something like that. The Dutch, naturally, felt that they had a proprietary interest and all the major daily newspapers published a transcript of the lost pages on the same day, which has presumably dissuaded the foundatiion from taking further legal action. So in order to add my salt to the OP, even though I live in Amsterdam I am not aware that anybody seriously thinks the diaries are fake, however they may well no be complete.

10

Phil - I haven’t laughed that hard in several days! HA HA HA. Very clever

Formerly unknown as “Melanie”

11

Thank you for everyone that answered. A couple of comments, and the final answer to my question:

As several posters have mentioned, Otto Frank, before the original publication of his daughter’s diaries, removed several passages concerning her sexuality and several personal comments Anne Frank had made about the other occupants of their hiding place. (Which he was perfectly justified in doing, in my opinion.) Afterwards, other people reading the diaries thought that the whole text should be published, and the whole text is now available. I think the Comprehensive Critical edition of her diary is the most complete (but I would check on that before ordering it, if what you want is the most complete text of her writings.)

What I was wondering is about an article in “Der Spiegel” magazine saying that the diaries were a hoax. I’m not surprised to find out that some lunatics have claimed the diaries were fake, but a major german magazine like “Der Spiegel” claiming it would be surprising.

An internet search revealed the answer! Go to this link:
Anne Frank House
Click on “Diary”, then on “Diary Current”, then on “Authenticity Diary”.

Here’s what they have to say (in brief):
Several (german) people had attacked the authenticity of the diary. Otto Frank filed several lawsuits against these people. In one lawsuit, a court in Lübeck (Germany) ruled, in 1960, that the diaries were authentic, after research into the authenticity of Anne Frank’s writing.

Another ruling in 1978 prohibited another person from writing articles claiming the diary was fake.

Two cases in 1979 were dismissed because of freedom of speech issues, but the court ruled that if an injured party filed suit, slander changes could be pressed.

Finally (and here’s the answer to my question), the most involved case:
In 1976 E. Römer published pamphlets claiming the diary was a forgery. In 1977 the district court in Hamburg fined him, but during the appeal stage another right-winger, E. Geiss, was condemned for distributing in the courtoom other pamphlets saying the diary was fake. An appeal was filed and the Römer/Geiss cases were combined. The German Criminal Court Laboratory (Bundeskriminalamt or BKA) was asked to examine the diary. Their conclusions: paer and ink had been in use dsometime during the war, but they also said later corrections to the pages were made with a ballpoint pen (and ballpoint pens were unavailable in World War II). In 1980, “Der Spiegel” (here we go!) published an article about those findings, which claimed “this undermines the authenticity of the document even further”. Otto Frank died in Augutst 1980. The manuscripts were left to the Dutch State, who deposited the documents with the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie or NIOD). Otto Frank’s heir was the Anne Frank Fund in Basel, which also inherited the copyright of the book. The NIOD published the complete diaries of Anne Frank in an annotated version. The State Forensic Science Laboratory (Gerechtelijk Laboratorium) in Rijswijk was asked to examine the diary. The Gerechtelijk Laboratorium asked the BKA to indicate where they had seen ballpoint ink. The BKA was unable to point out a single alleged correction in ballpoint ink (surprise, surprise!) After all these years, the case was resumed in 1990, Geiss was sentenced to a fine (Römer had since died), but the fine was set aside on appeal because of the statute of limitations on the offence.

Conclusion:
So I guess “Der Spiegel” did, in fact, in 1980, publish an article questioning the authenticity of the diaries, following a conclusion by a german scientific laboratory. But since the german laboratory was unable to justify its findings during a second examination by another laboratory, I think “Der Spiegel” should publish a retraction and apology.

Whew! That was long.

12

Oh wow! My firt time being mentioned in someone else’s posting. I feel so honored. I don’t know why I should, but I do :smiley: Thanks Arnold!

And thank you for taking the time to research and post the truth about these absurd accusations. Things like this…

really make me sad.

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank

13

You’re welcome, Shayna.

By the way, forgot to say:
BobT, thank you for pointing me in the direction of the Anne Frank House, where I found my answer.

Johnny Angel, you should be happy if you went to a university that’s full of activists. It’s more challenging to debate political topics with people that actually care about the answers, than to debate with people who just want to get an MBA to run out and make millions.

14

I mentioned this in another thread, but anyone who is interested in this topic should hunt down “The Diary of Anne Frank–The Critical Edition,” which was published by the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation (publ. in US in 1989). It contains the complete text of the diary, both original and published versions, as well as articles about the Frank family, their lives, and their arrest. It also contains a very interesting article about “Attacks on the Authenticity on the Diary,” as well as the Institute’s rebuttals. Practically every mark made on the diary’s pages is accounted for. Highly interesting reading.

15

To further advance the fight for knowledge, and just to be a link geek, the book D Marie mentions is available from amazon.com here.

I’m not perky.

16

Alphagene, thanks for the link. :slight_smile: Reading over my answer, I didn’t make it very clear that this book is the same as what Arnold W. mentions above. One point I was trying to make is that the book contains a lot of neat information besides that relating to authenticity.

17

Has anyone said that "Der Spiegel didn’t report that the story was untrue? The way I see it, someone said that the diary was a hoax, gave what looked like valid evidence, and "Der Spiegel reported it as a straight news story, which, after all, is their job.

If they didn’t follow up when the story was proven to be a lie, that would be culpable. But is there any evidence whatever that that is the case?

Remember, it is one of the most common forms of deceit to say, truthfully, “This was written about in [insert news medium here].” The New York Times has published articles about reports of UFO’s; does that mean that the Times believes in alien abductions?

John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams

18

You are perfectly correct, JWK. I actually sent an e-mail to “Der Spiegel” a couple of days ago with that very question. I’ll let the board know if I ever get a reply (my german is pretty bad so they might dismiss me as a kook.)

19

This is an old thread that came up in a search for items relating to anoter thread, but I’m surprised that you guys forgot Cecil.

OK, OK, so he wrote the column three years after the last post in this thread, but in the spirit of revisionism.