Hitler's Piano Player: The Rise and Fall of Ernst Hanfstaengl, Confidante of Hitler, Ally of FDR

Conradi, Peter

ISBN 10: 078671283X / ISBN 13: 9780786712830

Published by Da Capo Press, 2004

About this Item

Gently read. May have name of previous ownership, or ex-library edition. Binding tight; spine straight and smooth, with no creasing; covers clean and crisp. Minimal signs of handling or shelving. 100% GUARANTEE! Shipped with delivery confirmation, if you're not satisfied with purchase please return item! Ships USPS Media Mail.

Seller Inventory # OTV.078671283X.VG

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Hitler's Piano Player: The Rise and Fall of Ernst Hanfstaengl, Confidante of Hitler, Ally of FDR
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 078671283X
• ISBN 13: 9780786712830
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: very_good

About this title

Synopsis

Ernst Hanfstaengl (Putzi) was court jester, pianist, and foreign press chief for Hitler during his political climb, and later played a lead role in Roosevelt's top-secret project to use disinformation against the Nazis. An urbane Harvard-educated German, Putzi was living in Germany in 1922 when he first heard Hitler speak in Munich. Introducing himself after the speech, Putzi began one of the strangest relationships in twentieth-century politics. As he tried to introduce Hitler to Munich high-society and polish his image in the eyes of the world, Hanfstaengl helped finance Mein Kampf, claimed to have devised the chant of "Sieg Heil," and attempted to set Hitler up with the American ambassador's beautiful young daughter. But he fell out of Hitler's graces, fled to Britain where he was interned, and then transferred to America. There, he worked for his old friend from the Harvard Club, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The star of Roosevelt's "S-Project," Putzi provided information on four hundred leading Nazis, analyses of Hitler's speeches, and a sixty-eight-page psychological portrait of Hitler. Through newly declassified documents, photographs, interviews with members of Hanfstaengl's family, and original writing by Hanfstaengl, Peter Conradi recounts the remarkable life of history's personal link between Hitler and FDR.

About the Author

Peter Conradi is the author of The Red Ripper: Inside the Mind of Russia's Most Brutal Serial Killer, and Mad Vlad: Vladimir Zhirinovsky and the New Russian Nationalism. A graduate of Oxford University, he also studied at Munich's Ludwig-Maximilian University and knows Hanfstaengl's hometown well. Conradi is Deputy Foreign Editor of The Sunday Times (London).