Hitler: The Memoir of the Nazi Insider Who Turned Against the Fuhrer

by Ernst Hanfstaengl, John Willard Toland (Foreword by)

Overview

Of American and German parentage, Ernst Hanfstaengl graduated from Harvard and ran the family business in New York for a dozen years before returning to Germany in 1921. By chance he heard a then little-known Adolf Hitler speaking in a Munich beer hall and, mesmerized by his extraordinary oratorical power, was convinced the man would some day come to power. As Hitler’s fanatical theories and ideas hardened, however, he surrounded himself with rabid extremists such as Goering, Hess, and Goebbels, and Hanfstaengl became estranged from him.

But with the Nazi’s major unexpected political triumph in 1930, Hitler became a national figure, and he invited Hanfstaengl to be his foreign press secretary. It is from this unique insider’s position that the author provides a vivid, intimate view of Hitler—with his neuroses, repressions, and growing megalomania—over the next several years. In 1937, four years after Hitler came to power, relations between Hanfstaengl and the Nazis had deteriorated to such a degree that he was forced to flee for his life, escaping to Switzerland. Here is a portrait of Hitler as you’ve rarely seen him.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781628721393
Publisher:	Arcade
Publication date:	08/01/2011
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	553,708
File size:	485 KB

About the Author

Ernst Hanfstaengl was born in 1887 to German and American parents. He was educated at Harvard, but eventually moved to Germany, where he met a young Hitler at the very beginning of his political rise. After turning down Hitler's invitation to continue as his foreign press secretary, he returned to the United States, where he worked with the American government against the Nazi regime. He died in 1975.

John Willard Toland was an American author and historian best known for his Adolph Hitler: The Definitive Biography and The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire 1936-1945, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He died in 2004.

Table of Contents

Introduction John Toland 5

Foreword to the Original edition 9

Introduction to the Original Edition 11

Letter to the Author From Hermann Goering 17

I Harvard's Gift to Hitler 21

The dozen years that made Hitler

My schooldays with Himmler's father

Sedgwick, Heine and Hanfstaengl forbears

Harvard and Theodore Roosevelt

Conflict on Fifth Avenue

The predictions of a German Jew

The American military attaché speaks of Hitler

Introduction to an agitator.

II Tristan in the Thierschstrasse 38

Sugar in the wine

Rosenberg

The infantryman's guide

Fitting Hitler for society

The Stammitsch at the Café Neumaier

Cranks and intimates

The basic reading of a dictator

Wagner on an upright piano

From Falarah to Sieg Heil

A woman's reaction

A pamphlet becomes a newspaper.

III One Side to a Statue 55

Begging expeditions

Hitler escapes a Communist patrol

From bombs to women boxers

Hitler's fixation with Leda and the Swan

His faux pas as an art expert

Diamonds and a fedora hat

The plans for Czechoslovakia

Hitler's gifts as a mimic -Poison on his birthday

Orator in excelsis

Goering, Hess and Haushofer.

IV Particular Generals 75

Ferment in Bavaria

Hitler and Roehm

Pyro-mania 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.

V Fiasco at the Feldherrnhalle 91

Plan for a Putsch

Cracks in the Kamp found

Double-cross at the Bürgerbräu

Kahrfreitag

Red wine for Ludendorff- Fusillade in the Residenz-strasse

My escape to Austria

Hitler's attempted suicide.

VI Twilight at Landsberg 110

Goering in exile-A first sight of Geli Raubal-Hitler's hunger strike