Hanfstaengl Ernst - Hitler: the Memoir of the Nazi Insider Who Turned Against the Fuhrer

HITLER

The Memoir of a Nazi Insider

Who Turned Against the Fuhrer

HITLER

The Memoir of a Nazi Insider

Who Turned Against the Fuhrer

By Ernst Hanfstaengl

Translation and Introduction by John Toland

Afterword by Egon Hanfstaegl

Arcade Publishing New York

Copyright 1957, 2011 by Ernst Hanfstaengl

Introduction copyright 1994, 2011 by John Toland

Afterword copyright 1994, 2011 by Egon Hanfstaengl

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN: 978-1-61145-055-2

Printed in the United States of America

To the Memory

of OSWALD SPENGLER

(1880-1936)

Historian, Philosopher, Patriot and Friend whose

unheeded warnings and prophecies

about Hitler became such grim reality

CONTENTS

The dozen years that made Hitler My schooldays with Himmlers father Sedgwick, Heine and Hanfstaengl forbears Harvard and Theodore Roosevelt Conflict on Fifth Avenue The predictions of a German Jew The American military attach speaks of Hitler Introduction to an agitator.

Sugar in the wine Rosenberg The infantrymans guide Fitting Hitler for society The Stammitsch at the Caf Neumaier Cranks and intimates The basic reading of a dictator Wagner on an upright piano From Falarah to Sieg Heil A womans reaction A pamphlet becomes a newspaper.

Begging expeditions Hitler escapes a Communist patrol From bombs to women boxers Hitlers fixation with Leda and the Swan His faux pas as an art expert Diamonds and a fedora hat The plans for Czechoslovakia Hitlers gifts as a mimic Poison on his birthday Orator in excelsis Goering, Hess and Haushofer.

Ferment in Bavaria Hitler and Roehm Pyromania in the Rhineland Jewish anti-Semites Dietrich Eckart loses faith Rhinoceros whips in the courtyard Rosenberg insults the Catholics An offer from Mathilde Ludendorff Hitler tempts General von Seeckt Compromising reluctant allies.

Plan for a Putsch Cracks in the Kampfbund Double-cross at the Brgerbru Kahrfreitag Red wine for Ludendorff Fusillade in the Residenzstrasse My escape to Austria Hitlers attempted suicide.

Goering in exile A first sight of Geli Raubal Hitlers hunger strike The acrobat of the cells Duel for the leadership Welcome with Liebestod The narrowing of a mind Operatic eroticism The man on the tight-rope.

A revision of Mein Kampf No waltzes for the Fhrer Ludendorff for President The return of Rosenberg A world tour rejected The scaffold block at the Tower Hitler on his knees Forced repayment of a debt.

Art versus politics The return of Goering A red ground for the Swastika The radicalism of Goebbels Appearance of a Hohenzollern An electoral triumph Picking the first team Interlude with the press A letter from the Kaiser Committed to the Nazis.

Hitler takes a luxury flat The amours of his niece Pornographic drawings and blackmail Soprano without talent The unwilling sub-tenant Suicide Corpse without inquest Hara-kiri and a pregnancy The impotent Herostratus.

Poacher and gamekeeper Prejudices strengthened The Prussians of Asia Peripatetic boredom The court minstrel Assertion at arms length Encounter with Churchill A message from Roosevelt Split with Strasser Buskers in the Kaiserhof Two organized disappointments No mate for the glow-worm.

Neurath versus Rosenberg First brush with Goering Reichstag fire fever Goebbels at Potsdam The one-man revolution Interventions with Himmler Hostages for a policy No make-up for the Mitfords The shape of things to come.

Metternichs in shirt-sleeves Three lunches a day Rings around a dictator King Kong and Ludwig II America from a chair The schizopedic radical The wine merchant who deserted The loyalties of a Fouch A flag without a pole Intercession with Mussolini.

Palm court interlude Disguised departure Shock on the high seas Harvard, class of 09 The liquidation of Roehm Assassin at bay The mad hatters lunch party The Flying Dutchman.

Aftermath of a purge What happened at Wiessee Austrian misadventure Short shrift at Neudeck A wheel comes full circle Funeral March farewell Analysis of a medium The prophet and the caliph The militant revivalist Pinchbeck Pericles The tragedy of an orator.

Unacknowledged banishment The warning of Rosalind von Schirach No bed of my own The Chancellery on the telephone A mission to Spain The intrusive cameraman Goerings plot frustrated A race with the Gestapo Fiftieth birthday of a fugitive Unity Mitford repeats a remark No joke on a parachute.

Bodenschatz as emissary Egon abstracted Bribes, blandishments and threats The warning of Reichenau The non-enemy alien Eels in a bathing hut Cramped quarters in Canada Haushofer triunfans An offer to Roosevelt State prisoner at Bush Hill Reports for a President No inducement to revolt A black-list ignored Return to the ruins No world for Hitlers.

INTRODUCTION

ERNST HANFSTAENGL was a man with two countries. His mother came from a well-known New England family, the Sedgwicks, and two of his ancestors were Civil War generals, one of whom helped carry Lincolns coffin. In Germany two generations of Hanfstaengls had served as privy counsellors to the dukes of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and were connoisseurs and patrons of the arts. The family owned an art-publishing house in Munich well known for its excellent reproductions.

Hanfstaengl had been brought up in an atmosphere of art and music and was himself an accomplished pianist. I have spent many hours in his Munich home listening to him play the piano with verve, his six-foot-four frame hunched over the piano, making him look like an impish bear. His nickname was Putzi (little fellow).

Adolf Hitler too had been enthralled by Putzis music, and made him one of his closest associates in 1922. After hearing Hitler speak at a beer hall, Hanfstaengl had been fascinated by his control of the audience. People, he wrote, were sitting breathlessly, who had long since forgotten to reach for their beer mugs and instead were drinking in the speakers every word. Nearby a young woman was staring at Hitler: As though in some devotional ecstasy, she had ceased to be herself and was completely under the spell of Hitlers despotic faith in Germanys future greatness.

On the spur of the moment Putzi introduced himself. About ninety-five percent of what you said I can set my name to, and five percent we will have to talk about that. What he particularly objected to was Hitlers blatant anti-Semitism.

Like so many others in Germany, Hanfstaengl imagined he could control Hitler. He loaned the Fhrer a thousand dollars, interest free, which enabled Hitler to purchase two American rotary presses and turn his weekly Nazi newspaper into a daily. Putzi also became his foreign Press secretary.