Cryptonym: CASHAKER-1

104-10256-10277: GERMAN MAGAZINE ATTEMPTS TO TIE HOWARD HUNT/FRANK STURGIS TO THE DALLAS ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY.

01/07/75: Memo from Gerard J. Hahn, Chief, E/G to O/DDO (Attn: Mr. Burns): Subject: German Magazine Attempts to Tie Howard Hunt/Frank Sturgis to the Dallas Assassination of President Kennedy: "1. Recent publicity against CIA in the U.S. has stimulated the German weekly Der Stern to intensify previous efforts to tie Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis to the Dallas assassination of President Kennedy. According to CASHAKER-1, a cooperative senior editor of Stern, the magazine plans to fly reporter Gerd Heidemann to Dallas about 9 January for interviews. The reporter working on the story at Stern, Frank Heigl, claims to be in touch with 'dissident CIA staffers who were forced out after Dallas.' Heigl supposedly picked up these contacts in Ankara and Frankfurt. 2. In October 1974, Der Stern paid Dallas photographer Jack Beers $1,000 for copies of pictures he had taken of persons being led away by the police from the book depository after the assassination of President Kennedy. The magazine was attempting to identify Watergate defendants Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis with persons shown in the Dallas photographs to build up a story implying Hunt (and by inference CIA) involvement in the assassination. To buttress this conjecture, the magazine hired Professor Rainer Knussmann of the Anthropological Institute of the University of Hamburg to do a 'scientific' comparison of the Dallas photos with stock shots of Hunt and Sturgis. His findings are that there is a high probability that Hunt and Sturgis could be identical with two persons shown in the Dallas snapshots and that the matter should be pursued further. A summary translation of the Knussmann findings is attached."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_(magazine)

"Stern (pronounced [ʃtɛʁn], German for 'Star') is an illustrated, broadly left-liberal, weekly current affairs magazine published in Hamburg, Germany, by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. Under the editorship (1948–1980) of its founder Henri Nannen, it attained a circulation of between 1.5 and 1.8 million, the largest in Europe's for a magazine of its kind. [1] Unusually for a popular magazine in post-war West Germany, and most notably in the contributions to 1975 of Sebastian Haffner, Stern investigated the origin and nature of the preceding tragedies of German history. In 1983, however, its credibility was seriously damaged by its purchase and syndication of the forged Hitler Diaries. A sharp drop in sales anticipated the general fall in newsprint readership in the new century. By 2019, circulation had fallen under half a million...[2] Editors-in-chief: 1948–1980: Henri Nannen...Well-known contributors: Niklas Frank, culture editor, son of the National Socialist war criminal Hans Frank [34]. Sebastian Haffner, anti-Nazi exile, historian, columnist [35]. Gerd Heidemann, reporter who in 1983 acquired the forged Hitler diaries for the magazine. [36] Volker Hinz, photojournalist. Erich Kuby, publicist and journalist. [37] Robert Lebeck, photojournalist [38]. Niklaus Meienberg, Swiss writer and journalist. [39] Reimar Oltmanns, author and journalist. [40] Michael Ruetz, photojournalist. [41] Günther Schwarberg, writer, journalist, long-serving editor. [42]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Nannen

"Henri Nannen (25 December 1913 in Emden – 13 October 1996 in Hanover) was a German journalist and art collector. He became one of the most prominent journalists and magazine publishers in Germany. His father was a police officer in Emden who was removed from his post by the NSDAP. After a one-year book dealer apprenticeship he studied the history of art at the University of Munich. In the 1930s he started working as a journalist. During the war he served in SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers, a propaganda unit in Italy. Being large, well-built and fair haired, he corresponded to the racial ideals of the time in Germany. This made him the speaker of the Olympic Oath during the 1936 event in Berlin – for Riefenstahl's film, but not in reality. [1] Many years after the war, he confessed that 'I knew what was happening...but I was too cowardly to do something against it.' [1] He got back to journalism while working for the Hannoverschen Neusten Nachrichten, the daily newspaper Abendpost and the youth newspaper Zickzack. He was the founder of Gruner + Jahr publishing house and the news magazine Der Stern. He led the magazine from 1948 to 1980 to become one of the strongest in Europe. Gruner + Jahr is the largest publisher in Europe as of 2014. Nannen gained popularity as an art collector and benefactor of the Kunsthalle [de] in Emden, an art museum, that he built in 1983. The annual Henri Nannen Prizes are awarded in his honor by Gruner + Jahr. The Henri-Nannen-Schule (formerly Hamburger Journalistenschule), is the journalist school of Gruner + Jahr and is considered one of the best schools of journalism in Germany, along with the German School of Journalism (Deutsche Journalistenschule) in Munich. [2] He was married to Eske Nannen (born 1942), a former actress. Henri Nannen has a son Christian Nannen (born 1946), [3] co-owner of Hamburg suitcase-producer Travelite. [4]"

https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/15/world/henri-nannen-editor-82-hurt-in-hitler-hoax.html

10/15/1996: Obituary of Henri Nannen by David Stout in The New York Times: Headline: Henri Nannen, Editor, 82, Hurt In Hitler Hoax: "Henri Nannen, the founder and longtime publisher of the German magazine Stern, whose distinguished career was tarnished in a hoax over Hitler's 'lost diaries,' died on Sunday in Hamburg, Germany. He was 82. Mr. Nannen had been suffering from cancer, the Associated Press reported. Mr. Nannen was one of the founders of Stern in 1948. In 32 years as editor and three as publisher, he helped to make it one of the most lively and popular magazines in Europe. But the magazine suffered a stunning setback to its reputation (and for a time its circulation) in 1983, when it published the 'Hitler Diaries.' The magazine announced on April 22, 1983, that one of its reporters, Gerd Heidemann, had gained access to the documents through his contacts with unrepentant Nazis. The 'diaries' had supposedly been saved in 1945 from the wreckage of a burning plane in eastern Germany. Boasting that it had achieved 'the biggest journalistic coup of the postwar period,' Stern rushed parts of the supposed diaries into print after reportedly paying more than $3 million for them, even though the announcement of the discovery had prompted skepticism. Within days, tests in police laboratories and examinations by Government archivists established that the so-called diaries could not possibly be those of Hitler, who in any event had never been known to keep a diary. It turned out that the Stern reporter, Mr. Heidemann, had been duped by a Stuttgart forger, Konrad Kujau...As a young man, Mr. Nannen studied art history. Just before World War II, he wrote articles for an art magazine in which he praised Hitler. But years later, he said he had never been a Nazi and had been forced to flee Germany after his friendship with a Jewish woman caught the attention of Munich police...'We attack abuse of authority, attack authority,' Mr. Nannen said early in his career..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunther_Schwarberg

"Günther Schwarberg (14 October 1926 – 3 December 2008) was a German journalist and author whose 1979 series of articles in German news magazine Der Stern and subsequent book The SS Doctor and the Children brought the World War II-era war crimes committed in Neuengamme concentration camp and Bullenhuser Damm School in Hamburg to the public's conscience in Germany, and the rest of the world. He worked at the Weser Courier in the beginning of his career then the Bremer Nachrichten in Bremen and worked at Der Stern for twenty five years. [1]"

https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-stern-magazine-to-probe-founders-nazi-era-links/a-62676891

08/01/2022: Article on dw.com website: Headline: Stern magazine to probe historical links to Nazi-era: Henri Nannen was a prominent figure in German journalism after 1945, but now his personal, political and journalistic connections to the Nazi era are under investigation: "Historians will investigate Stern magazine's historical links to the Nazi era, the magazine's publisher said on Monday. The move by the weekly current affairs magazine comes after a report by public broadcaster NDR raised questions about Stern's founder and longtime editor-in-chief, Henri Nannen. What does the investigation entail? Stern's publishing house Bertelsmann has tasked historians at Germany's Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History with taking a closer look at Nannen's role during Germany's Nazi era and its aftermath. Nannen was the founder, longtime publisher and editor-in-chief of Stern. The research assignment was initiated by Bertelsmann's Executive Board in close cooperation with all subsidiaries, the company announced on Monday in Gütersloh. These included the editors-in-chief of Stern and the Henri Nannen School of Journalism. A spokeswoman for Bertelsmann said, 'The research period will cover the years from the founding of Stern by Henri Nannen in 1948 until his departure in 1983.' The focus is on the question of 'political, personal and journalistic intertwinings and connections to the National Socialist era,' she said. The project is slated to last several years. Existing research is to be supplemented with a factual basis for public debate about Nannen's potential Nazi involvement, aiming to shed some light on the history of German journalism after 1945. Who was Henri Nannen? Nannen was a prominent figure in German journalism and was especially known for championing center-left politics. It was already known, however, that he had written pro-Nazi articles for an art journal and broadcast pro-government propaganda during World War II..."