Hitler Adolf - Hitlerland: Americans in Germany as the Nazis rise to power

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Praise for Hitlerland

One of Tina Browns Must-Reads

NPR

I have never felt quite so horribly intimate with the Fhrer as I did when reading Hitlerland ... history as vivid as it comes.

Christopher Dickey, Newsweek

Filled with fresh insight and riveting stories, this is an important addition to the recorded history of Hitler and the Third Reich. This is first rate reporting that captures and engages readers until the very last page.

Tucson Citizen

A compelling work for World War II history buffs or anyone who wants to understand how such devastating evil emerged while the world seemingly watched.

Library Journal

Andrew Nagorski, a deft storyteller, has plumbed the dispatches, diaries, letters, and interviews of American journalists, diplomats, and others who were present in Berlin to write a fascinating account of a fateful era.

Henry Kissinger

An engrossing study of the times made more fascinating and incredible in retrospect... contextually rich... [a] well marshaled study.

Kirkus Reviews

A distinguished correspondent, [Nagorski] makes these journalists the heroes of his book.... The eyewitnesses... were an impressively prolific group.... Most of them very quickly recognized the vicious character of Nazism.

The New York Review of Books

At times deliciously gossipy, at times thoroughly chilling, Hitlerland offers countless novel insights into Germanys evolution from struggling democracy in the 1920s to totalitarian dictatorship in the 1930s. The intimate portraits from Hitler down add an almost tangible sense of the foibles, ambitions, insecurities, and perversities of the relatively small top Nazi elite whose actions plunged our world into a catastrophe from which we are yet fully to recover. The Americans themselves come alive as a group of intense, enterprising journalists and diplomats faced with the greatest challenge of their lives.

Misha Glenny, author of The Balkans 18041999

Compulsively readable and deeply researched

The Weekly Standard

Hitlerland conveys, often vividly, the difficulty Americans had coming to terms with Nazi terror.... Informative and interesting.

Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Hitlerland is a bit of a guilty pleasure. Reading about the Nazis is not supposed to be fun, but Nagorski manages to make it so. Readers new to this story will find [it] fascinating.

The Washington Post

A multidimensional view of the Austrian-born tyrant. The invaluable element of this character study of the enigmatic fhrer is the accumulative clout of the comments of famed American outsiders.... Nagorskis account is rich in anecdotal detail about how a man dismissed by many could hypnotize a nation and terrorize the world.

Publishers Weekly

The book contributes to our understanding of Germany and usefully augments our historical perspectives.

Jerusalem Post

Nagorski... has ingeniously stitched together the story of the diplomats, journalists, and other expatriates who worked in Germany during the two decades that ended with Americas entry into World War II.

Columbia Journalism Review

A deft storyteller, Nagorski brings that history to life.... Nagorski opens up a window into an era that we thought we already knew and allows these Americans to tell their stories without passing judgment on their perceptiveness or the rectitude of their moral compasses clouded by the benefits of historical hindsight.

Jewish Book World

A clever way to tell a familiar story.... A well conceived, crafted, and executed story. Casual as well as informed World War II buffs will savor it.

History News Network

Andrew Nagorskis Hitlerland is a fresh, compelling portrait of Nazi Germany, as seen through the eyes of a fascinating array of Americans who lived and worked there during Hitlers rise to power. The extraordinary saga of Putzi Hanfstaengl, a Harvard graduate who became Hitlers court jester, is just one of the many page-turning stories that makes Hitlerland a book not to be missed.

Lynne Olson, author of Citizens of London

The rise of Hitler and the Nazi state, one of the most consequential and profound narratives in all of world politics, receives compelling new treatment in Andrew Nagorskis outstanding Hitlerland . By illuminating the disparate experiences of the eras preeminent American diplomats, journalists, intellectuals, and others, Nagorski has created an engrossing, harrowing, and vividly drawn mosaic of eyewitness accounts to one of historys most phenomenal catastrophes.

Gordon M. Goldstein, author of Lessons in Disaster:
McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam

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Copyright 2012 by Andrew Nagorski

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First Simon & Schuster paperback edition March 2013

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Designed by Jill Putorti

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Nagorski, Andrew.

Hitlerland : American eyewitnesses to the Nazi rise to power / by Andrew Nagorski.1st Simon & Schuster hardcover ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. GermanyPolitics and government19181933. 2. GermanyPolitics and government19331945. 3. Hitler, Adolf, 18891945. 4. NazisHistory. 5. AmericansGermanyBiography. 6. World War, 19391945Personal narratives, American. 7. World War, 19391945Social aspectsGermany. 8. GermanySocial conditions19181933. 9. GermanySocial conditions19331945. I. Title.

DD253.N225 2011

940.54'213dc23 2011017360

ISBN 978-1-4391-9100-2

ISBN 978-1-4391-9101-9 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-4391-9102-6 (ebook)

Photo credits are .

For the youngest generation,
Christina, Kaia, Maia, Charles, Sydney, Caye, and Stella,
And, as always,
For Krysia

O f all the Americans who reported from Germany between World War I and World War II, no one was quite as well prepared for the assignment as Sigrid Schultz. Born in Chicago in 1893 to parents who had come from Norway, she spent most of her youth, starting at age eight, in Europe. Her father was a successful portrait painter who made Paris his base, which meant Sigrid attended French schools. When he received an assignment to paint the portrait of the king and queen of Wrttemberg, she also attended German schools for several months, equipping her not only with the language but also with early insights into local attitudes.