Schtonk!

Overview

Schtonk! is a farce of the actual events of 1983, when Germany's Stern magazine published, with great fanfare, 60 volumes of the alleged diaries of Adolf Hitler – which two weeks later turned out to be entirely fake. Fritz Knobel (based on real-life forger Konrad Kujau) supports himself by faking and selling Nazi memorabilia. When Knobel writes and sells a volume of Hitler's (nonexistent) diaries, he thinks it's just another job. When sleazy journalist Hermann Willié learns of the diaries, however, he quickly realizes their potential value... and Knobel is quickly in over his head. As the pressure builds and Knobel is forced to deliver more and more volumes of the fake diaries, he finds himself acting increasingly like the man whose life he is rewriting. The film is a romping and hilarious satire, poking fun not only at the events and characters involved in the hoax (who are only thinly disguised in the film), but at the discomfort Germany has with its difficult past.

Cast

Götz George

Hermann Willié

Uwe Ochsenknecht

Fritz Knobel

Christiane Hörbiger

Freya von Hepp

Harald Juhnke

Pit Kummer

Ulrich Mühe

Dr. Wieland

Rolf Hoppe

Karl Lentz

Dagmar Manzel

Biggi

Veronica Ferres

Martha

Hermann Lause

Kurt Glück

Martin Benrath

Uwe Esser

Georg Marischka

Von Klantz

Karl Schönböck

August Strasser