UNKNOWN HITLER

"Where did Hitler's extraordinary hold over Germany come from? Ernst ('Putzi') Hanfstaengl became one of Hitler's early close collaborators (suing an American newspaper that alleged he was a lover). His startling portrait of the young Nazi party - he was friends with Hitler and Roosevelt, as well as T.S. Eliot, Picasso and Oswald Spengler - starts in Bavaria where Himmler's father was his schoolmaster. Educated at Harvard University, whose cheerleading marches were to inspire 'Sieg Heil', Hanfstaengl befriended the young Franklin Roosevelt. Upon his return to poverty-stricken Bavaria, he fell under the spell of Hitler in a Munich beer hall." "As his foreign-press secretary Hanfstaengl introduced the Fuhrer to US-presidential election techniques and people such as Diana and Unity Mitford, while the Nazi reign spiralled further into terror. Unable to be a follower, Hanfstaengl fled Nazi Germany in 1937 after an assassination attempt he thought had been triggered by Unity Mitford - it was one of Hitler's and Goebbels' practical jokes. Arrested in London, feared and loathed alike by the Nazis (who put him on their death list) and the British government, Hanfstaengl was loaned in 1942 to his friend Roosevelt whom he secretly advised on the psychology of Hitler."--BOOK JACKET.