Even 80 years on, it can't be easy producing a show about Hitler. But "Faking Hitler" is a success.
It resists the urge to preach about the morality of the situation or of the era, and plays it quite "light". This means that the story develops at a good pace and successfully combines humourous moments with a reflection on German attitudes to World War II in the 80s.
At it's heart it's about the relationship between Gerd Heidemann (Lars Heidinger), a magazine journalist who desperately wants to believe has has got the scoop of the century, and Konrad Kujau (Moritz Bleibtreu), a charismatic but sloppy forger who can't believe the opportunity that has fallen into his hands. Both mingle in Nazi-sympathetic circles, decades on from the fall of Hitler. Both are flawed men.
The story's moral core comes from Sinje Irslinger's Elisabeth, a young Stern journalist who has doubts about the diaries, and about her own family's history.
Thankfully the morality is not overdone and maintains dramatic tension rather than turning into a polemic.
It's only based on a true story so outside of Heidemann and Kujau the characters are mostly fictional. Fortunately the show gets the balance between the truth, the reinterpretations, and the fictionalised side stories just right.
Simply put, it's an entertaining drama.
