Ernst Hanfstaengl

Ernst Franz Sedgwick Hanfstaengl (2 February 1887 – 6 November 1975) was a German American businessman and close friend of Adolf Hitler.

He eventually fell out of favour with Hitler and defected from Nazi Germany to the United States.

He later worked for Franklin D. Roosevelt and was once engaged to the author Djuna Barnes.

Hanfstaengl, nicknamed "Putzi", was born in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, the son of a German art publisher, Edgar Hanfstaengl, and an American mother.

He spent most of his early years in Germany and later moved to the United States.

His mother was Katharine Wilhelmina Heine, daughter of Wilhelm Heine, a cousin of American Civil War Union Army general John Sedgwick.

His godfather was Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

He had an elder sister, Erna, two elder brothers Edgar and Egon, and a younger brother Erwine.

He attended Harvard College and became acquainted with Walter Lippmann and John Reed.

A gifted pianist, he composed several songs for Harvard's football team.

He graduated in 1909.

He moved to New York City, where he took over the management of the American branch of his father's business, the Franz Hanfstaengl Fine Arts Publishing House.

Many mornings he would practice on the piano at the Harvard Club of New York City, where he became acquainted with both Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt.

Among his circle of acquaintances were the newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst, author Djuna Barnes, to whom he was engaged, and actor Charlie Chaplin.

At the outbreak of World War I, he asked the German military attaché in New York City, Franz von Papen, to smuggle him back to Germany.

Slightly baffled by the proposal, the attaché refused, and Hanfstaengl remained in the U.S. during the war.

After 1917, the American branch of the family business was confiscated as enemy property.

Hanfstaengl introduced himself to Hitler after the speech and began a close friendship and political association that would last through the 1920s and early 1930s.

For much of the 1920s, Hanfstaengl introduced Hitler to Munich high society and helped polish his image.

He also helped to finance the publication of Hitler's Mein Kampf, and the NSDAP's official newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter (People's Observer).

Hitler was the godfather of Hanfstaengl's son Egon.

Hanfstaengl composed both Brownshirt and Hitler Youth marches patterned after his Harvard football songs and, he later claimed, devised the chant "Sieg Heil".

Included among Hanfstaengl's friends during this period were Hanns Heinz Ewers and fellow Nazi Party worker and journalist Kurt Lüdecke.

Hanfstaengl returned to Germany in 1922.

While living in his native Bavaria, he first heard Adolf Hitler speak in a Munich beer hall.

A fellow member of the Harvard's Hasty Pudding club who worked at the U.S. Embassy asked Hanfstaengl to assist a military attaché sent to observe the political scene in Munich.

Just before returning to Berlin, the attaché, Captain Truman Smith, suggested that Hanfstaengl go to a Nazi rally as a favor and report his impressions of Hitler.

After participating in the failed Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, Hanfstaengl briefly fled to Austria, while the injured Hitler sought refuge in Hanfstaengl's home in Uffing, outside of Munich.

Hanfstaengl's wife, Helene, allegedly dissuaded Hitler from committing suicide when the police came to arrest him.

Hanfstaengl was so fascinated by Hitler that he soon became one of his most intimate followers, although he did not formally join the Nazi Party until 1931.

"What Hitler was able to do to a crowd in 2½ hours will never be repeated in 10,000 years," Hanfstaengl said.

"Because of his miraculous throat construction, he was able to create a rhapsody of hysteria. In time, he became the living unknown soldier of Germany."

When Winston Churchill was staying at the Hotel Regina in Munich in late August 1932, Hanfstaengl introduced himself and said he could easily arrange a meeting with Hitler there since he came to the hotel every evening around five o'clock.

At the time, Churchill said he had no national prejudices against Hitler and knew little of his "doctrine or record and nothing of his character."

In the course of the conversation with Hanfstaengl, Churchill asked, "Why is your chief so violent about the Jews? I can quite understand being angry with the Jews who have done wrong or who are against the country, and I understand resisting them if they try to monopolise power in any walk of life; but what is the sense of being against a man because of his birth? How can a man help how he is born?"

Hanfstaengl, according to Churchill, must have related this to Hitler because the next day, around noon, he came to the hotel to tell Churchill that Hitler would not be coming to see him after all.

In addition, Hitler may not have wanted to meet with Churchill, who was then out of power and thought to be of no importance.

Churchill declined to meet with Hitler on several subsequent occasions.

During the Reichstag fire, Hanfstaengl was staying at Göring's official residence, noticed the fire, and alerted members of the Nazi Party.

As the Nazi Party consolidated its power, several disputes arose between Hanfstaengl and Germany's Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels.