Plot

Fritz Knobel (the film's alter-ego of real-life forger Konrad Kujau) supports himself by faking and selling Nazi memorabilia. So he sells a portrait of Eva Braun and one volume of Hitler's alleged diaries to factory owner Karl Lenz. Lenz presents this on a "birthday party to the Führer" to his guests, among them sleazy journalist Hermann Willié. Willié is working for the magazine "HH press" (real-world Stern magazine is located in Hamburg, which is abbreviated "HH" on German car license plates; "HH" is pronounced "haha", but is also an abbreviation of "heil Hitler"). In the events Knobel writes down according to what happens around him; after he meets his later lover Martha, she becomes his inspiration for Eva Braun. As he then comes under increasing stress, having to deliver the remaining volumes that he had already sold, he turns more and more into a mock image of Hitler himself.