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Schtonk

Fritz Knobel (a fictionalized version of real-life forger Konrad Kujau) supports himself by faking and selling Nazi memorabilia. He sells a portrait of Eva Braun and one volume of what he alleges to be Hitler's diaries (but which he actually wrote himself) to factory owner Karl Lenz. Lenz shows off the diary to his guests during a "birthday party for the Führer ", among whom is sleazy journalist Hermann Willié. Willié works for the magazine "HH Press"; the letters HH are a licence plate abbreviation for Hamburg where the real-life Stern magazine is located, but are also the common abbreviation for " Heil Hitler " among neo-Nazis.

Knobel, in need of material to produce more diaries, turns to his own life for inspiration; after he meets Martha and she becomes his lover (he is already married to Biggi), Martha becomes the inspiration for the diary version of Eva Braun. Rumors about the diaries cause a major Nazi craze in high society, allowing former Nazi officials to flaunt their old ranks (e.g. Obergruppenführer). Willié becomes even more obsessed, buying Hermann Göring 's old yacht Carin II and starting an affair with his (fictional) grandniece Freya von Hepp, who is based on Hermann Göring's daughter Edda Göring.

Towards the end, the plot has developed its own dynamics, putting more and more pressure on Knobel to deliver the remaining volumes while in constant fear that his forgery will be discovered. The volumes are convincing enough to fool the enthusiastic journalists, who are willing to overlook some oddities, especially a false monogram "FH" instead of "AH" on one of the volumes. They invent alternative facts to explain away the discrepancy (the term " Führerhauptquartier " instead of "Adolf Hitler" for instance). Later, Knobel manages to manipulate a forensic graphoanalysis to his advantage, but it seems only a matter of time until the truth is discovered.

The constant fear, and the struggle against developing a too-close identification with the person he is writing about, eventually make Knobel collapse. Biggi and Martha take charge of the situation, forcing him to pull himself out of the forgery business just in time, while (similar to the end of World War II) the Nazi-enthusiasts fall – more or less hard according to their personal level of belief.