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For a century, Harry Houdini has been safely filed away in the public imagination as a nostalgic variety act: a man in monochrome film escaping handcuffs, water tanks, and straightjackets. This series smashes that myth. Hosted by “psychological illusionist” Derren Brown, How Houdini Made Magic reframes a penniless immigrant refugee named Erik Weisz as a prophetic, hyper-modern visionary. Long before the birth of Silicon Valley, modern political spin rooms, or algorithmic social media, Houdini cracked the code of modern fame. He didn't just escape physical boxes; he manipulated suspense, pioneered viral guerrilla marketing, employed the legal system to protect his brand, and mastered the dark arts of post-truth media. He created magic in far more ways than you think. Against a backdrop of vaudeville and societal revolution, Derren explores the lesser-known identities of a magician who continues to inspire him and countless other magicians: Houdini as an advertising guru, a new media innovator, a sceptic… a spy? We’ll come to realise that today’s world actually closely mirrors the ‘sepia-tinted’ world Houdini operated in: a time of rapid industrialisation, intense social change, massive wealth inequality, widespread social activism, global conflict, cultural revolutions, and immense technological advancement. We are living in an attention economy running on the exact behavioural hacks, artificial friction, and narrative illusions engineered by Harry Houdini over a century ago.

Andrew Hunter Murray tracks down Hitler’s faked diaries to the Bundesarchiv – the Federal Archive – in Koblenz. How did these slim A4 notebooks cause such enormous trouble? But the archivists have one more surprise in store. After all these years, are we any closer to understanding the motivation behind this forgery? Was it purely financial, or was it - as some say - a deliberate effort to rehabilitate Hitler? And what does the whole story tell us about our willingness to let ourselves be deceived? Writer and broadcaster Andrew Hunter Murray uncovers last century’s biggest ever publishing scandal, a forgery which rocked the world and destroyed reputations. It’s a tale of greed, obsession and mass delusion. It includes Hermann Göring’s yacht, Nazi-themed honeymoons, Idi Amin’s underpants, and more details almost too unbelievable for words. Andrew interviews the people who were there as the diaries were announced to the world, and as the story fell apart - the archivist tasked with authenticating the diaries in Germany, the TV producer led around the homes of retired Nazis to film a promotional documentary for the scoop, and the Fleet Street editor given 24 hours to create a world-beating story based on fraudulent material. In our own time of AI, fake news and disinformation, are there any lessons we can take from the greatest hoax of the last 50 years? Gerd Heidemann tapes part of the Gerd Heidemann collection, Hoover Institute, copyright Stanford University. Presenter: Andrew Hunter Murray Producer: Ruth Abrahams Story Editor: Andrew Dickson Sound Design: Joel Cox Mix Engineer: Nigel Appleton Executive Producers: David Prest and Robert Nicholson Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke A Whistledown production for BBC Sounds and Radio 4

It’s May 1983, and everything is falling apart for Gerd Heidemann. Now the heat is on forger Konrad Kujau too. How long can he stay incognito? Millions of Deutschmarks are unaccounted for, reputations lie in tatters. Who will take the blame? Who will fall? And why does the world of Nazi memorabilia hold such fascination for collectors inside Germany and across the world? Writer and broadcaster Andrew Hunter Murray uncovers last century’s biggest ever publishing scandal, a forgery which rocked the world and destroyed reputations. It’s a tale of greed, obsession and mass delusion. It includes Hermann Göring’s yacht, Nazi-themed honeymoons, Idi Amin’s underpants, and more details almost too unbelievable for words. Andrew interviews the people who were there as the diaries were announced to the world, and as the story fell apart - the archivist tasked with authenticating the diaries in Germany, the TV producer led around the homes of retired Nazis to film a promotional documentary for the scoop, and the Fleet Street editor given 24 hours to create a world-beating story based on fraudulent material. In our own time of AI, fake news and disinformation, are there any lessons we can take from the greatest hoax of the last 50 years? Gerd Heidemann tapes part of the Gerd Heidemann collection, Hoover Institute, copyright Stanford University. Presenter: Andrew Hunter Murray Producer: Ruth Abrahams Story Editor: Andrew Dickson Sound Design: Joel Cox Mix Engineer: Nigel Appleton Executive Producers: David Prest and Robert Nicholson Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke A Whistledown production for BBC Sounds and Radio 4

Stern’s editorial and management team dig in, sticking by their story and their journalist Gerd Heidemann. Hugh Trevor-Roper returns to Cambridge shaken, hiding away in the master’s lodge at Peterhouse. Meanwhile, Dr Josef Henke of the Federal archives gets to work – finally with whole volumes of diaries. At last he can run the proper checks and read the text. What kind of Hitler emerges from the pages? Writer and broadcaster Andrew Hunter Murray uncovers last century’s biggest ever publishing scandal, a forgery which rocked the world and destroyed reputations. It’s a tale of greed, obsession and mass delusion. It includes Hermann Göring’s yacht, Nazi-themed honeymoons, Idi Amin’s underpants, and more details almost too unbelievable for words. Andrew interviews the people who were there as the diaries were announced to the world, and as the story fell apart - the archivist tasked with authenticating the diaries in Germany, the TV producer led around the homes of retired Nazis to film a promotional documentary for the scoop, and the Fleet Street editor given 24 hours to create a world-beating story based on fraudulent material. In our own time of AI, fake news and disinformation, are there any lessons we can take from the greatest hoax of the last 50 years? Gerd Heidemann tapes part of the Gerd Heidemann collection, Hoover Institute, copyright Stanford University. Presenter: Andrew Hunter Murray Producer: Ruth Abrahams Story Editor: Andrew Dickson Sound Design: Joel Cox Mix Engineer: Nigel Appleton Executive Producers: David Prest and Robert Nicholson Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke A Whistledown production for BBC Sounds and Radio 4

It’s Monday, 25 April 1983, the day of the big press conference at Stern’s offices in Hamburg. The world’s media is assembled, awaiting the ‘scoop of the century’. The room is packed and Stern’s team, along with British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, are ready to reveal the diaries. History looks set to be rewritten. But not everyone is convinced. In fact, the key authenticator is having doubts and there’s an intervention from the back of the room. Is this coup collapsing before Stern’s eyes? Writer and broadcaster Andrew Hunter Murray uncovers last century’s biggest ever publishing scandal, a forgery which rocked the world and destroyed reputations. It’s a tale of greed, obsession and mass delusion. It includes Hermann Göring’s yacht, Nazi-themed honeymoons, Idi Amin’s underpants, and more details almost too unbelievable for words. Andrew interviews the people who were there as the diaries were announced to the world, and as the story fell apart - the archivist tasked with authenticating the diaries in Germany, the TV producer led around the homes of retired Nazis to film a promotional documentary for the scoop, and the Fleet Street editor given 24 hours to create a world-beating story based on fraudulent material. In our own time of AI, fake news and disinformation, are there any lessons we can take from the greatest hoax of the last 50 years? Gerd Heidemann tapes part of the Gerd Heidemann collection, Hoover Institute, copyright Stanford University. Presenter: Andrew Hunter Murray Producer: Ruth Abrahams Story Editor: Andrew Dickson Sound Design: Joel Cox Mix Engineer: Nigel Appleton Executive Producers: David Prest and Robert Nicholson Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke A Whistledown production for BBC Sounds and Radio 4

It’s April 1983 and in Hamburg, Stern is just putting the final touches to its coverage and its promotional film. But for TV producer Barbara Dickmann, something seems very off with her final interviewee – the journalist behind the scoop, Gerd Heidemann. Over in the Sunday Times offices in London, features editor Magnus Linklater is getting pulled onto the biggest story of his life. In Koblenz, West Germany, Dr Josef Henke finally gets the police results from the forensic tests which will prove whether the Hitler diaries are real or not. And back in Cambridge, historian Hugh Trevor-Roper is having second thoughts about his seal of approval. Writer and broadcaster Andrew Hunter Murray uncovers last century’s biggest ever publishing scandal, a forgery which rocked the world and destroyed reputations. It’s a tale of greed, obsession and mass delusion. It includes Hermann Göring’s yacht, Nazi-themed honeymoons, Idi Amin’s underpants, and more details almost too unbelievable for words. Andrew interviews the people who were there as the diaries were announced to the world, and as the story fell apart - the archivist tasked with authenticating the diaries in Germany, the TV producer led around the homes of retired Nazis to film a promotional documentary for the scoop, and the Fleet Street editor given 24 hours to create a world-beating story based on fraudulent material. In our own time of AI, fake news and disinformation, are there any lessons we can take from the greatest hoax of the last 50 years? Gerd Heidemann tapes part of the Gerd Heidemann collection, Hoover Institute, copyright Stanford University. Presenter: Andrew Hunter Murray Producer: Ruth Abrahams Story Editor: Andrew Dickson Sound Design: Joel Cox Mix Engineer: Nigel Appleton Executive Producers: David Prest and Robert Nicholson Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke A Whistledown production for BBC Sounds and Radio 4

It’s spring 1983 and Stern magazine’s inner circle is making frenzied preparations to launch its scoop of the century. Deals are being cut in media empires from London to Paris to New York. The Times and Sunday Times, newly acquired by Rupert Murdoch, are keen. Murdoch wants a quick authentication and calls in Britain’s foremost historian, Hugh Trevor-Roper. He accepts the mission and flies out to Zurich where the diaries are now locked away in a bank vault. Trevor-Roper has just a few hours to make his judgement. Meanwhile, TV journalist, Barbara Dickmann, has been commissioned by Stern to make a promotional film starring Gerd Heidemann about his big find. Dickmann is taken around the homes of old Nazis where Heidemann receives a warm welcome. Even more alarmingly, he starts telling Dickmann that he’s on speaking terms with a senior Nazi who died in 1945. Writer and broadcaster Andrew Hunter Murray uncovers last century’s biggest ever publishing scandal, a forgery which rocked the world and destroyed reputations. It’s a tale of greed, obsession and mass delusion. It includes Hermann Göring’s yacht, Nazi-themed honeymoons, Idi Amin’s underpants, and more details almost too unbelievable for words. Andrew interviews the people who were there as the diaries were announced to the world, and as the story fell apart - the archivist tasked with authenticating the diaries in Germany, the TV producer led around the homes of retired Nazis to film a promotional documentary for the scoop, and the Fleet Street editor given 24 hours to create a world-beating story based on fraudulent material. In our own time of AI, fake news and disinformation, are there any lessons we can take from the greatest hoax of the last 50 years? Gerd Heidemann tapes part of the Gerd Heidemann collection, Hoover Institute, copyright Stanford University. Presenter: Andrew Hunter Murray Producer: Ruth Abrahams Story Editor: Andrew Dickson Sound Design: Joel Cox Mix Engineer: Nigel Appleton Executive Producers: David Prest and Robert Nicholson Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke A Whistledown production for BBC Sounds and Radio 4

It’s early 1981 and the forger Konrad Kujau and the journalist Gerd Heidemann are about to come face to face. Everything’s in motion - Stern management and a small team of editorial staff are on board, sworn to secrecy from colleagues and the outside world. In the next few months, millions of Deutschmarks will travel in suitcases in exchange for diaries, which are – so Kujau says – being smuggled across the iron curtain, from East to West Germany. Despite Stern’s best efforts, by late 1982, rumours are circulating among memorabilia collectors that significant previously unseen Nazi documents have come to light. The Sunday Times gets a call. Writer and broadcaster Andrew Hunter Murray uncovers last century’s biggest ever publishing scandal, a forgery which rocked the world and destroyed reputations. It’s a tale of greed, obsession and mass delusion. It includes Hermann Göring’s yacht, Nazi-themed honeymoons, Idi Amin’s underpants, and more details almost too unbelievable for words. Andrew interviews the people who were there as the diaries were announced to the world, and as the story fell apart - the archivist tasked with authenticating the diaries in Germany, the TV producer led around the homes of retired Nazis to film a promotional documentary for the scoop, and the Fleet Street editor given 24 hours to create a world-beating story based on fraudulent material. In our own time of AI, fake news and disinformation, are there any lessons we can take from the greatest hoax of the last 50 years? Gerd Heidemann tapes part of the Gerd Heidemann collection, Hoover Institute, copyright Stanford University. Presenter: Andrew Hunter Murray Producer: Ruth Abrahams Story Editor: Andrew Dickson Sound Design: Joel Cox Mix Engineer: Nigel Appleton Executive Producers: David Prest and Robert Nicholson Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke A Whistledown production for BBC Sounds and Radio 4

Andrew Hunter Murray travels to the scene of the crime, just outside Stuttgart, from where the forger Konrad Kujau ran his cottage industry. Who was this man, prone to splash the cash in local bars and have a good time while knocking out forgeries? Curator of the Konrad Kujau museum, Marc Oliver Boger, reveals more. Our story takes us to 1980 in Hamburg, where the Stern journalist Gerd Heidemann is down on his luck. He has serious money problems, sinking thousands into maintaining Göring’s old yacht and still nothing to show for it. Lucky for him that a huge story is about to become tantalisingly close. All he needs is to persuade his magazine, Stern. Writer and broadcaster Andrew Hunter Murray uncovers last century’s biggest ever publishing scandal, a forgery which rocked the world and destroyed reputations. It’s a tale of greed, obsession and mass delusion. It includes Hermann Göring’s yacht, Nazi-themed honeymoons, Idi Amin’s underpants, and more details almost too unbelievable for words. Andrew interviews the people who were there as the diaries were announced to the world, and as the story fell apart - the archivist tasked with authenticating the diaries in Germany, the TV producer led around the homes of retired Nazis to film a promotional documentary for the scoop, and the Fleet Street editor given 24 hours to create a world-beating story based on fraudulent material. In our own time of AI, fake news and disinformation, are there any lessons we can take from the greatest hoax of the last 50 years? Gerd Heidemann tapes part of the Gerd Heidemann collection, Hoover Institute, copyright Stanford University. Presenter: Andrew Hunter Murray Producer: Ruth Abrahams Story Editor: Andrew Dickson Sound Design: Joel Cox Mix Engineer: Nigel Appleton Executive Producers: David Prest and Robert Nicholson Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke A Whistledown production for BBC Sounds and Radio 4

It’s 1976, Hamburg, and star reporter for Stern magazine, Gerd Heidemann, is entertaining old Nazis on board his boat – formerly Herman Göring’s yacht, the Carin II. Known for his dogged pursuit of a scoop, Heidemann’s patch is slowly but surely shifting from war reporting to gathering old Nazi tales. He’s getting obsessed. One of his contacts links him up with a memorabilia collector in the south of Germany who has something interesting to show the journalist - the never-before-seen diary of Adolf Hitler. Writer and broadcaster Andrew Hunter Murray uncovers last century’s biggest ever publishing scandal, a forgery which rocked the world and destroyed reputations. It’s a tale of greed, obsession and mass delusion. It includes Hermann Göring’s yacht, Nazi-themed honeymoons, Idi Amin’s underpants, and more details almost too unbelievable for words. Andrew interviews the people who were there as the diaries were announced to the world, and as the story fell apart - the archivist tasked with authenticating the diaries in Germany, the TV producer led around the homes of retired Nazis to film a promotional documentary for the scoop, and the Fleet Street editor given 24 hours to create a world-beating story based on fraudulent material. In our own time of AI, fake news and disinformation, are there any lessons we can take from the greatest hoax of the last 50 years? Gerd Heidemann tapes part of the Gerd Heidemann collection, Hoover Institute, copyright Stanford University. Presenter: Andrew Hunter Murray Producer: Ruth Abrahams Story Editor: Andrew Dickson Sound Design: Joel Cox Mix Engineer: Nigel Appleton Executive Producers: David Prest and Robert Nicholson Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke A Whistledown production for BBC Sounds and Radio 4

On 21 April, 1945, in the hamlet of Börnersdorf, Eastern Germany, a Junkers plane plummets from the sky. It crashes and bursts into flames. A few iron boxes are salvaged from the wreckage. Rumour spreads that Hitler’s personal effects are in those boxes. Could there have been diaries? In the decades that follow, a trade in Nazi memorabilia springs up where genuine documents and fakes cross hands, making dealers big money in a murky underworld. Konrad Kujau, in the south of Germany, has carved out a lucrative niche in this world, embellishing objects with forged certificates and documents. In the late 1970s, he decides it’s time to scale up and try for the ultimate prize – Adolf Hitler’s diary. But will anyone believe it? Writer and broadcaster Andrew Hunter Murray uncovers last century’s biggest ever publishing scandal, a forgery which rocked the world and destroyed reputations. It’s a tale of greed, obsession and mass delusion. It includes Hermann Göring’s yacht, Nazi-themed honeymoons, Idi Amin’s underpants, and more details almost too unbelievable for words. Andrew interviews the people who were there as the diaries were announced to the world, and as the story fell apart - the archivist tasked with authenticating the diaries in Germany, the TV producer led around the homes of retired Nazis to film a promotional documentary for the scoop, and the Fleet Street editor given 24 hours to create a world-beating story based on fraudulent material. In our own time of AI, fake news and disinformation, are there any lessons we can take from the greatest hoax of the last 50 years? Gerd Heidemann tapes part of the Gerd Heidemann collection, Hoover Institute, copyright Stanford University. Presenter: Andrew Hunter Murray Producer: Ruth Abrahams Story Editor: Andrew Dickson Sound Design: Joel Cox Mix Engineer: Nigel Appleton Executive Producers: David Prest and Robert Nicholson Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke A Whistledown production for BBC Sounds and Radio 4

Writer and broadcaster Andrew Hunter Murray uncovers last century’s biggest ever publishing scandal, a forgery which rocked the world and destroyed reputations. When Germany’s biggest magazine Stern announced in 1983 that they’d found the long-lost diaries of Adolf Hitler, authenticated by the eminent British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, the world was poised to rewrite history. Salvaged from the wreckage of a Junkers plane which had crashed escaping Hitler’s Berlin bunker in the dying days of the war, the diaries had been hidden in a hayloft in East Germany for forty years. And remarkably they had now come to light, smuggled across the border into West Germany at the height of the Cold War. One lone journalist, Gerd Heidemann, known as ‘The Bloodhound’, had tracked them down. It had taken two years of secret missions and millions of Deutschmarks to amass all sixty volumes of Hitler’s personal, handwritten journals. The world was about to find the truth of Adolf Hitler’s mind: what he knew, what motivated him, his intimate reflections as the Third Reich rose and fell. That, at least, was the story – a story which news organisations the world over, including Rupert Murdoch’s newly-acquired Sunday Times, believed. This would be a sensation – assuming, of course, that it was true. It’s a tale of greed, obsession and mass delusion. It includes Hermann Goering’s yacht, Nazi-themed honeymoons, Idi Amin’s underpants, and more details almost too unbelievable for words. Murray interviews the people who were there as the diaries were announced to the world, and as the story fell apart: the archivist tasked with authenticating the diaries in Germany, the TV producer led around the homes of retired Nazis to film a promotional doc for the scoop, and the Fleet Street editor given 24 hours to create a world-beating story based on fraudulent material. Murray’s mission is to track down the actual books which caused all this chaos, and to get as close as he can to the truth. In our own time of AI, fake news and disinformation, are there any lessons we can take from the greatest hoax of the last fifty years? Presenter: Andrew Hunter Murray Producer: Ruth Abrahams A Whistledown Production for BBC Sounds and Radio 4

1953 Tehran. An American diplomat called Kermit Roosevely III rides through the city’s streets on his way to see the Shah of Iran. Although he can’t see anything because he’s riding in the boot covered in a Persian carpet. He doesn’t want to be seen because he’s on a top secret mission. A mission from the American government. To overthrow Iran’s popular Prime Minister threatening to nationalise the oil industry — Mohamed Mossadegh. Kermit is organising a coup. This is the story of how America came up with a blueprint of how to fight its communist enemies abroad while still looking like the good guy. How it maintained its role as the virtuous superpower while getting rid of people it didn’t like. They decided to do it in secret, using the ultimate invisible hand - the CIA. It’s a tale of oil, money, power and marks the start of a toxic relationship between Iran and the US that is still playing out to this day. David Dimbleby tells the story of how in the middle of the 20th century one country - America - became a superpower and shaped the world around it. It began with a vision. A vision born out of the ashes of World War Two. A vision of a world shaped not by war but by peace. This vision of America at the head of the free world came to be the defining idea at the center of the past 80 years of world politics. And yet now it is under threat. So how did we get here? How did America become the leader of the free world and why did it go wrong? It’s a story shaped by people. People you have probably never heard of. In the 20th Century, these ‘invisible hands’ wrote the story America came to believe about itself. A story of moral leadership leading to prosperity and peace. But is it a story that has run out of steam? Presenter: David Dimbleby Producer: Redzi Bernard Sound Design: Jeff Emtman Executive Producers: Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitsina Story Editor: Joe Sykes, Dasha Lisitsina, and Peggy Sutton Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke A Samizdat Audio production for BBC Radio 4

A man wakes up in the middle of the night in Moscow. He is sick. Shivery. Feverish. But he has a mission. A mission that will end up changing the course of world history. After World War Two was over, America was ready for peace. And to continue working with their ideological adversary, the Soviet Union. Franklin Delano Roosevelt even flew to Crimea to make a deal with Churchill and Stalin. But there was one man who was sounding the alarm, all the way from a freezing Moscow winter. A Chekhov-obsessed diplomat called George Kennan who’s witnessed Stalin’s repressions first hand and would live to 101. More than anyone else, he will set the trajectory of American foreign policy in the 20th Century - with a telegram. A telegram he would come to deeply regret. This is the story of how the US and USSR went from allies to enemies. And the man who made this happen - starting what would come to be called the Cold War. David Dimbleby tells the story of how in the middle of the 20th Century one country - America - became a superpower and shaped the world around it. It began with a vision. A vision born out of the ashes of World War Two. A vision of a world shaped not by war but by peace. This vision of America at the head of the free world came to be the defining idea at the center of the past 80 years of world politics. And yet now it is under threat. So how did we get here? How did America become the leader of the free world and why did it go wrong? It’s a story shaped by people. People you have probably never heard of. In the 20th Century, these ‘invisible hands’ wrote the story America came to believe about itself. A story of moral leadership leading to prosperity and peace. But is it a story that has run out of steam? Presenter: David Dimbleby Producer: Redzi Bernard Sound Design: Jeff Emtman Executive Producers: Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitsina Story Editor: Joe Sykes, Dasha Lisitsina, and Peggy Sutton Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke A Samizdat Audio production for BBC Radio 4

This is the story of the most important person you've probably never heard of. The man who made the dollar the centre of the world. And America along with it. His name is Harry Dexter White and, as an economist at the Treasury, he had a vision of how to ensure another conflict like World War Two would never happen again. To do that he had to upend the whole structure of the world financial system - and make the US Dollar the most important currency on Earth. Standing in his way was the greatest celebrity economist of all time, John Maynard Keynes. The battle between these two men - and Harry Dexter White’s eventual victory - would come to define the next 80 years of world history. And yet, just a few years later, this visionary economist - the man who changed the world - would be dead. Branded as a traitor to his country. Accused of being the worst thing an American could be accused of - a Soviet Spy. In Series 2 of Invisible Hands: The American Century, David Dimbleby tells the story of how, in the middle of the 20th century, America became a superpower and shaped the world around it. It began with a vision. A vision born out of the ashes of World War Two. A vision of a world shaped not by war but by peace. This vision of America at the head of the free world came to be the defining idea at the centre of the past 80 years of world politics. And yet now, it is under threat. So how did we get here? How did America become the leader of the free world and why did it go wrong? It’s a story shaped by people. People you may not know. These ‘invisible hands’ wrote the story America came to believe about itself. A story of moral leadership leading to prosperity and peace. But is it a story that has run out of steam? Presenter: David Dimbleby Producer: Redzi Bernard Sound Design: Jeff Emtman Executive Producers: Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitsina Story Editor: Joe Sykes, Dasha Lisitsina, and Peggy Sutton Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke A Samizdat Audio production for BBC Radio 4