CHAPTER EIGHT
Putzi: Friend of Hitler and Roosevelt
Ernst Sedgewiek Hanfstaengl (or Hanfy or Putzi, as he was more usually called), like Hjalmar Horace Greeley Sehacht, was another German-American at the core of the rise of Hitlerism. Hanfstaengl was born into a well-known New England family; he was a cousin of
By
coincidence, S.S. leader Heinrich Himmler's father was also Putzi's form master
at the Royal Bavarian Wilhelms gymnasium. Putzi's student day friends at
Harvard University were "such outstanding future figures" as Walter
Lippman, John Reed (who figures prominently in Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution), and Franklin D.
Roosevelt. After a few years at Harvard, Putzi established the family art
business in New York; it was a delightful combination of business and pleasure,
for as he says, "the famous names who visited me were legion, Pierpont
Morgan, Toscanini, Henry Ford, Caruso, Santos-Dumont, Charlie Chaplin,
Paderewski, and a daughter of President Wilson."2
It was also at Harvard that Putzi made friends with the future President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt:
I
took most of my meals at the Harvard Club, where I made friends with the young
Franklin D. Roosevelt, at that time a rising New York State Senator. Also I
received several invitations to visit his distant cousin Teddy, the former
President, who had retired to his estate at Sagamore Hill.3
From
these varied friendships (or perhaps after reading this book and its
predecessors, Wall Street and FDR and
Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution,
the reader may consider Putzi's friendship to have been confined to a
peculiarly elitist circle), Putzi became not only an early friend, backer and
financier of Hitler, but among those early Hitler supporters he was, "., . almost the only person who
crossed the lines of his (Hitler's) groups of acquaintances."4
In
brief, Putzi was an American citizen at the heart of the Hitler entourage from
the early 1920s to the late 1930s. In 1943, after falling out of favor with the
Nazis and interned by the Allies, Putzi was bailed out of the miseries of a
Canadian prisoner of war camp by his friend and protector President Franklin D.
Roosevelt. When FDR's actions threatened to become an internal political
problem in the United States, Putzi was re-interned in England. As if it is not
surprising enough to find both Heinrich Himmler and Franklin D. Roosevelt
prominent in Putzi's life, we also discover that the Nazi Stormtrooper marching
songs were composed by Hanfstaengl, "including the one that was played by
the brownshirt columns as they marched through the Brandenburger Tor on the day
Hitler took over power.5
To top this eye-opener, Putzi averred that the genesis of the Nazi chant
"Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil," used in the Nazi mass rallies, was none other
than "Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, rah, rah, rah."
Putzi
certainly helped finance the first Nazi daily press, the Volkische Beobachter. Whether he saved Hitler's life from the
Communists is less verifiable, and while kept out of the actual writing process
of Mein Kampf — much to his disgust —
Putzi did have the honor to finance its publication, "and the fact that
Hitler found a functioning staff when he was released from jail was entirely
due to our efforts. ,"7
When
Hitler came to power in March 1933, simultaneously with Franklin Delano
Roosevelt in Washington, a private "emissary" was sent from Roosevelt
in Washington, D.C. to Hanfstaengl in Berlin, with a message to the effect that
as it appeared Hitler would soon achieve power in Germany, Roosevelt hoped, in
view of their long acquaintance, that Putzi would do his best to prevent any
rashness and hot-headedness. "Think of your piano playing and try and use
the soft pedal if things get too loud," was FDR's message. "If things start getting awkward
please get in touch with our ambassador at once.8
Hanfstaengl
kept in close touch with the American Ambassador in Berlin, William E. Dodd —
apparently much to his disgust, because Putzi's recorded comments on Dodd are
distinctly unflattering:
In
many ways, he [Dodd] was an unsatisfactory representative. He was a modest
little Southern history professor, who ran his embassy on a shoestring and was
probably trying to save money out of his pay. At a time when it needed a robust
millionaire to compete with the flamboyance of the Nazis, he teetered around
self-effacingly as if he were still on his college campus. His mind and his
prejudices were small.9
In
point of fact Ambassador Dodd pointedly tried to decline Roosevelt's
Ambassadorial appointment. Dodd had no inheritance and preferred to live on his
State Department pay rather than political spoils; unlike the politician Dodd
was particular from whom he received money. In any event, Dodd commented
equally harshly on Putzi, "... he
gave money to Hitler in 1923, helped him write Mein Kampf, and was in every way familiar with Hitler's motives
...."
Was
Hanfstaengl an agent for the Liberal Establishment in the U.S.? We can probably
rule out this possibility because, according to Ladislas Farago, it was Putzi
who blew the whistle on top-level British penetration of the Hitler command.
Farago reports that Baron William S. de Ropp had penetrated the highest Nazi echelons
in pre-World War II days and Hitler used de Ropp "... as his confidential consultant about British affairs.10
De Ropp was suspected as being a double agent only by Putzi. According to
Farago:
The
only person ... who ever suspected him of such duplicity and cautioned the
Fuehrer about him was the erratic Putzi Hanfstaengl, the Harvard educated chief
of Hitler's office dealing with the foreign press.
As
Farago notes, "Bill de Ropp was playing the game In both camps — a double
agent at the very top."11
Putzi was equally diligent in warning his friends, the Hermann Goerings, about
potential spies in their camp.
Witness the following extract from Putzi's memoirs, in which he points the
accusing finger of espionage at the Goerings' gardener..
"Herman,"
I said one day, "I will bet any money that fellow Greinz is a police
spy." "Now really, Putzi," Karin [Mrs. Herman Goering] broke in,
"he's such a nice fellow and he's a wonderful gardener." "He's
doing exactly what a spy ought to do," I told her, "he has made
himself indispensable."12
By
1941 Putzi was out of favor with Hitler and the Nazis, fled Germany, and was
interned in a Canadian prisoner of war camp. With Germany and the United States
now at war Putzi re-calculated the odds and concluded, "Now I knew for certain that Germany would be defeated."13
Putzi's release from the POW camp came with the personal intervention of old
friend President Roosevelt:
One
day a correspondent of the Hearst press named Kehoe obtained permission to
visit Fort Hens. I managed to have a few words with him in a corner. "I
know your boss well," I told him. "Will you do me a small
service?" Fortunately he recognized my name.
I
gave him a letter, which he slipped into his pocket. It was addressed to the
American Secretary of State, Cordell Hull. A few days later it was on the desk
of my Harvard Club friend, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In it I offered to act as
a political and psychological warfare adviser in the war against Germany.14
The
response and offer to "work" for the American side was accepted.
Putzi was installed in comfortable surroundings with his son, U.S. Army
Sergeant Egon Hanfstaengl, also there as a personal aide. In 1944, under pressure
of a Republican threat to blow the whistle on Roosevelt's favoritism for a
former Nazi, Egon was shipped out to New Guinea and Putzi hustled off to
England, where the British promptly interned him for the duration of the war,
Roosevelt or no Roosevelt,
Putzi's
friendships and political manipulations may or may not be of any great
consequence, but his role in the Reichstag fire is significant. The firing of
the Reichstag on February 27, 1933 is one of the key events of modern times.
The fire was used by Adolf Hitler to claim imminent Communist revolution,
suspend constitutional rights, and seize totalitarian power. From that point on
there was no turning back for Germany; the world was set upon the course to
World War II.
At
the time the firing of the Reichstag was blamed on the Communists, but there is
little question in historical perspective that the fire was deliberately set by
the Nazis to provide an excuse to seize political power. Fritz Thyssen
commented in the post-war Dustbin interrogations:
When
the Reichstag was burned, everyone was sure it had been done by the communists.
I later learned in Switzerland that it was all a lie.15
Schacht
states quite emphatically:
Nowadays
it would be quite clear that this action could not be fastened on the Communist
Party. To what extent individual National Socialists co-operated in the
planning and execution of the deed will be difficult to establish, but in view
of all that has been revealed in the meantime, the fact must be accepted that
Goebbels and Goering each played a leading part, the one in planning, the other
in carrying out the plan.16
The
Reichstag fire was deliberately set, probably utilizing a flammable liquid, by
a group of experts. This is where Putzi Hanfstaengl comes into the picture. The
key question is how did this group, bent on arson, gain access to the Reichstag
to do the job? After 8 p.m. only one door in the main building was unlocked and
this door was guarded. Just before 9 p.m. a tour of the building by watchmen
indicated all was well; no flammable liquids were noticed and nothing was out
of the ordinary in the Sessions Chamber where the fire started. Apparently no
one could have gained access to the Reichstag building after 9 p.m., and no one
was seen to enter or leave between 9 p.m. and the start of the fire.
There
was only one way a group with flammable materials could have entered the
Reichstag — through a tunnel that ran between the Reichstag and the Palace of
the Reichstag President. Hermann Goering was president of the Reichstag and
lived in the Palace, and numerous S.A. and S.S. men were known to be in the Palace.
In the words of one author:
The
use of the underground passage, with all its complications, was possible only
to National-Socialists, the advance and escape of the incendiary gang was
feasible only with the connivance of highly-placed employees of the Reichstag.
Every clue, every probability points damningly in one direction, to the
conclusion that the burning of the Reichstag was the work of
National-Socialists.17
How
does Putzi Hanfstaengl fit into this picture of arson and political intrigue?
Putzi
— by his own admission — was in the Palace room at the other end of the tunnel
leading to the Reichstag. And according to The
Reichstag Fire Trial, Putzi Hanfstaengl was actually in the Palace itself
during the fire:
propaganda
apparatus stood ready, and the leaders of the Storm Troopers were in their
places. With the official bulletins planned in advance, the orders of arrest
prepared, Karwahne, Frey and Kroyer waiting patiently in their cafe, the
preparations were complete, the scheme almost perfect.18
Dimitrov
also asserts that:
The
National-Socialist leaders, Hitler, Goering and Goebbels, together with the
high National-Socialist officials, Daluege, Hanfstaengl and Albrecht, happened
to be present in Berlin on the day of the fire, despite that the election
campaign was at its highest pitch throughout Germany, six days before the poll.
Goering and Goebbels, under oath, furnished contradictory explanations for
their "fortuitous" presence in Berlin with Hitler on that day. The
National-Socialist Hanfstaengl, as Goering's "guest," was present in
the Palace of the Reichstag President, immediately adjacent to the Reichstag, at
the time when the .fire broke out, although his "host" was not there
at that time.19
According
to Nazi Kurt Ludecke, there once existed a document signed by S.A. Leader Karl
Ernst — who supposedly set the fire and was later murdered by fellow Nazis —
which implicated Goering, Goebbels, and Hanfstaengl in the conspiracy.
Roosevelt's New Deal and Hitler's New Order
Hjalmar
Schacht challenged his post-war Nuremberg interrogators with the observation
that Hitler's New Order program was the same as Roosevelt's New Deal program in
the United States. The interrogators understandably snorted and rejected the
observation. However, a little research suggests that not only are the two
programs quite similar in content, but that Germans had no trouble in observing
the similarities. There is in the Roosevelt Library a small book presented to
FDR by Dr. Helmut Magers in December 1933.20
On the flyleaf of this presentation copy
is written the inscription,
To
the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in profound
admiration of his conception of a new economic order and with devotion for his
personality. The author, Baden, Germany, November 9, 1933.
FDR's
reply to this admiration for his new economic order was as follows:21
(Washington)
December 19, 1933
My
dear Dr. Magers: I want to send you my thanks for the copy of your little book
about me and the "New Deal." Though, as you know, I went to school in
Germany and could speak German with considerable fluency at one time, I am
reading your book not only with great interest but because it will help my
German.
Very
sincerely yours,
The
New Deal or the "new economic
order" was not a creature of classical liberalism. It was a creature of
corporate socialism. Big business as reflected in Wall Street strived for a
state order in which they could control industry and eliminate competition, and
this was the heart of FDR's New Deal. General Electric, for example, is
prominent in both Nazi Germany and the New Deal. German General Electric was a
prominent financier of Hitler and the Nazi Party, and A.E.G. also financed
Hitler both directly and indirectly through Osram. International General
Electric in New York was a major participant in the ownership and direction of
both A.E.G. and Osram. Gerard Swope, Owen Young, and A. Baldwin of General
Electric in the United States were directors of A.E.G. However, the story does
not stop at General Electric and financing of Hitler in 1933.
In
a previous book, Wall Street and the
Bolshevik Revolution, the author identified the role of General Electric in
the Bolshevik Revolution and the geographic location of American participants
as at 120 Broadway, New York City; the executive offices of General Electric
were also at 120 Broadway. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt was working in Wall
Street, his address was also 120 Broadway. In fact, Georgia Warm Springs
Foundation, the FDR Foundation, was located at 120 Broadway. The prominent
financial backer of an early Roosevelt Wall Street venture from 120 Broadway
was Gerard Swope of General Electric. And it was "Swope's Plan" that
became Roosevelt's New Deal — the fascist plan that Herbert Hoover was
unwilling to foist on the United States. In brief, both Hitler's New Order and
Roosevelt's New Deal were backed by the same industrialists and in content were
quite similar — i.e., they were both
plans for a corporate state.
There
were then both corporate and individual bridges between FDR,s America and
Hitler's Germany. The first bridge was the American I.G. Farben, American
affiliate of I.G. Farben, the largest German corporation. On the board of
American I.G. sat Paul Warburg, of the Bank of Manhattan and the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York. The second bridge was between International General'
Electric, a wholly owned subsidiary of General Electric Company and its partly
owned affiliate in Germany, A.E.G. Gerard Swope, who formulated FDR's New Deal,
was chairman of I.G.E. and on the board of A.E.G. The third "bridge"
was between Standard Oil of New Jersey and Vacuum Oil and its wholly owned
German subsidiary, Deutsche-Amerikanisehe Gesellschaft. The chairman of
Standard Oil of New Jersey was Walter Teagle, of the Federal Reserve Bank of
New York. He was a trustee of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Georgia Warm Springs
Foundation and appointed by FDR to a key administrative post in the National
Recovery Administration.
These
corporations were deeply involved in both the promotion of Roosevelt's New Deal
and the construction of the military power of Nazi Germany. Putzi Hanfstaengl's
role in the early days, up to the mid-1930s anyway, was an informal link
between the Nazi elite and the White House. After the mid-1930s, when the world
was set on the course for war, Putzis importance declined — while American Big
Business continued to be represented through such intermediaries as Baron Kurt
von Schroder attorney Westrick, and membership in Himmler's Circle of Friends.
Footnotes:
1William E. Dodd, Ambassador Dodd's Diary, 1933-1938, (New York: Harcourt, Brace
& Co., 1941), p. 360.
2Ernst Hanfstaengl, Unheard Witness, (New York: J.B. Lippincott, 1957), p. 28.
3Ibid., p.
4Ibid., p. 52.
5Ibid., p. 53.
6Ibid., p. 59.
7Ibid., p. 122.
8Ibid., pp. 197-8.
9Ibid., p. 214.
10Ladislas Farago, The Game of the Foxes, (New York: Bantam, 1973), p. 97.
11Ibid., p. 106.
12Ernst Hanfstaengl, Unheard Witness, op. cit., p. 76.
13Ibid.
14Ibid., pp. 310-11.
16Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, Confessions of" The Old Wizard," (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1956), p. 276.
17George Dimitrov, The Reichstag Fire Trial, (London: The Bodley Head, 1934), p. 309.
18Ibid., p. 310.
19Ibid., p. 311.
20Helmut Magers, Ein Revolutionar Aus Common Sense, (Leipzig: R. Kittler Verlag,
1934).
21Nixon, Edgar B., Editor, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Foreign Affairs, (Cambridge:
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1969), Volume 1: January
1933-February 1934. Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. Hyde Park, New York.
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