Schtonk!

The story

Schtonk! is a farce of the actual events of 1983, when Germany's Stern magazine published, with great fanfare, 60 volumes of the alleged diaries of Adolf Hitler – which two weeks later turned out to be entirely fake. Fritz Knobel (based on real-life forger Konrad Kujau) supports himself by faking and selling Nazi memorabilia. When Knobel writes and sells a volume of Hitler's (nonexistent) diaries, he thinks it's just another job. When sleazy journalist Hermann Willié learns of the diaries, however, he quickly realizes their potential value... and Knobel is quickly in over his head. As the pressure builds and Knobel is forced to deliver more and more volumes of the fake diaries, he finds himself acting increasingly like the man whose life he is rewriting. The film is a romping and hilarious satire, poking fun not only at the events and characters involved in the hoax (who are only thinly disguised in the film), but at the discomfort Germany has with its difficult past.

Cast & crew

Götz GeorgeHermann Willié

Uwe OchsenknechtFritz Knobel

Christiane HörbigerFreya von Hepp

Harald JuhnkePit Kummer

Ulrich MüheDr. Wieland

Rolf HoppeKarl Lentz

Dagmar ManzelBiggi

Veronica FerresMartha

Hermann LauseKurt Glück

Martin BenrathUwe Esser

Georg MarischkaVon Klantz

Karl SchönböckAugust Strasser