The story about the breakup of a 12-year marriage went viral, and was picked up by media across the world, including The Local.
Apparently Laura, Martin G.'s wife, had had an affair with a neighbour, and Martin reacted by sawing all their joint possessions in half, putting his halves up for sale on EBay, and uploading a bitter video to Youtube.
But the Deutsche Anwaltsauskunft, a German online legal magazine, posted a confession on their website on Sunday. They made the whole story up to raise the point that "too few married couples take precautions for the case of a possible separation."
A spokesman for the magazine told Süddeutsche Zeitung: "With traditional advertising methods we barely reach anyone these days."
The Local spoke to the Metro journalist on Twitter, who exclusively interviewed "Martin G." on Friday, and she said that the exchange had been done via email, without much detail and in poor English.
The halved items on EBay, which are actually real, have received lots of interest from bidders, and will remain on sale. Any money made by auctioning them off will be donated to charity.
The revelations don't seem to have deterred people as bidding for the car has pushed the price above €1,000.
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