Hitlerland

by Nagorski, Andrew

  Arriving in Munich on November 15, Smith had a clear-cut set of questions to address based on the hot topics of conversation among diplomats in Berlin. First, in light of the open hostility of “the reactionary government in Munich” to “the moderately leftist Reich government in Berlin,” was there a danger that Bavaria would declare itself independent? Second, was there a danger of another Communist revolt in Bavaria (a “Bavarian Soviet Republic” was briefly proclaimed in 1919)? And, third, “Did the possibility exist that Hitler’s National Socialists were strong enough to seize power in Bavaria?” He was also supposed to check on the loyalty of the 7th Division of the Reichswehr, as the Army was called, and on the significance of the sporadic incidents between the Bavarians and the Allied Military Control commissions, which were still operating in Germany following that country’s defeat.

  Smith set out to fulfill his assignment by meeting as many people as possible, recording his discussions and impressions in his notebooks. In typical military style, he referred to himself in the third person in these notes.

  Upon his arrival, he first went to the U.S. Consulate, where he met with Robert Murphy, the acting consul. Since the consulate had reopened in 1921, the four consular officers assigned there had been overwhelmed with paperwork, issuing on average about four hundred visas a day. “It seemed to us that the whole of Bavaria wanted to emigrate,” Murphy recalled. But the consular officers also attempted to monitor the turbulent local politics, trying to get a fix on Hitler and other radicals. “It was a welcome relief from those chores to transform ourselves into political reporters for the benefit of the State Department,” Murphy noted.

  Murphy told Smith that the new Bavarian Minister President Eugen von Knilling was weak and easily manipulated by right-wing politicians. Then their conversation turned to Hitler and the Nazis. Smith summarized Murphy’s views: “The National Socialists are increasing their strength rapidly. Hitler, their leader, is of Austrian origin and a pure and simple adventurer. Nevertheless, he is a real character and is exploiting all latent discontent to increase his party’s strength.”

  Murphy also passed along a rumor that Hitler had “a shady past” and may have misappropriated government funds in Austria. In Germany, he now commanded 40,000 men—“largely roughnecks but devoted to their leader.” While some reports had suggested he might have up to 200,000 men, Murphy pointed out that even his smaller force could prove effective if well led. “Hitler thoroughly understands the Bavarian psychology. Whether he is big enough to take the lead in a German national movement is another question; probably not.” Noting that the National Socialists were not working together with “the other monarchist groups,” he added that the Bavarian government was permitting the Nazis “to do what they want.” Still, Murphy confessed that it was difficult to assess all the competing groups. “All these nationalist societies are so mixed up among themselves that it is hard to keep them distinct.”

  That was only the beginning of Smith’s rounds, where he asked everyone he met about Hitler. General Kress von Kressenstein, the artillery commander of the 7th Division, hadn’t met Hitler, but he called his nationalist movement a “healthy drift away from socialism.” The general had the impression that the man was “an oratorical genius,” but he felt that “Hitler was not as radical as his speeches made him out.” He was anti-Semitic in “a healthy sense,” Kressenstein continued, since he wanted to keep Jews out of government positions. Barring some mistake, he predicted to Smith, his movement had “a great future before it.” He added that the National Socialists favored “an evolutionary development, not a revolutionary one.”

  Friedrich Trefz, the chief editor of the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, concurred that the National Socialists were a growing force. “Hitler was a marvelous speaker. None better,” Smith recorded him as saying. Trefz told Smith he had gone to a Nazi meeting and sat between a general and a Communist; both had come out of simple curiosity—and, afterward, both signed up as party members. Trefz’s conclusion: “The National Socialists present no immediate danger to the government. The ground is fertile, however, and the party will grow.”

  Finally, Smith made it to the informal headquarters of the Nazis at Georgenstrasse 42. There, he first met with Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, an early confidant of Hitler. He claimed that the party had 35,000 members in Munich, 200,000 sympathizers and a “militarily organized” underground, armed with clubs and pistols. As for the party’s anti-Semitism, he assured his American visitor that it was “purely for propaganda.”

  In the midst of the conversation, there was a sudden flurry of activity. The National Socialists had been planning to hold a meeting in Regensburg that evening, but the Reich Ministry of Railroads had just denied them permission for a special train to transport Hitler’s men. Scheubner-Richter explained that the Regensburg event had been postponed but that Hitler would be reviewing his troops, the Brownshirts, nearby. Smith was invited to watch this in the company of party ideologist Alfred Rosenberg.

  “A remarkable sight indeed,” Smith noted. “Twelve hundred of the toughest roughnecks I have ever seen in my life pass in review before Hitler at the goosestep under the old Reichflag wearing red armbands with Hakenkreuzen (swastikas).”

  Addressing his followers, Hitler explained that while the German government had stopped them from getting to Regensburg that day, the National Socialists would “clean up the town” the following week. In his notebook, Smith added: “He then shouts, ‘Death to the Jews’ etc. and etc. There was frantic cheering. I never saw such a sight in my life.” Afterward, Smith was briefly introduced to Hitler, who promised to talk with him two days later.

  While waiting, Smith visited General Ludendorff at home. The famed commander had a blunt message: “The Allies must support a strong German government capable of combating Marxism,” he insisted. As for the Fascist movement, he described it approvingly as “the beginning of a reactionary awakening in Europe.” His conclusion: “America must understand that only a strong nationalist government can preserve the country from chaos and insure reparations being paid to the Allies.”

  Returning to the Nazi headquarters on Monday, November 21, Smith met Hitler at 4 P.M. The American was startled by his quarters, which reminded him of a dreary back room of a New York tenement house. Later, Smith would express regret that he focused so much on the substance of Hitler’s political message rather than on more observations about his personality. But his impressions that day, which he recorded in his notebook once he had returned to his room in the Hotel Marienbad, were right to the point. “A marvelous demagogue,” he wrote. “I have rarely listened to such a logical and fanatical man. His power over the mob must be immense.” Hitler’s message was unequivocal: “Parliament and parliamentarianism must go. No one can govern with it in Germany today. Only a dictatorship can bring Germany to its feet.”

  In a report he filed after returning to Berlin, Smith echoed those points and added this assessment:

  The question whether Hitler’s National Socialists can play a role in Germany equivalent to the role of the Fascisti in Italy can still not be answered with any degree of certainty. In the limited area of Bavaria, south of the Danube, Hitler’s success cannot be gainsaid. Important gains have been registered by the National Socialists from the extreme socialist parties. It is believed that not only in Munich but in all Germany, there is a fertile field even among the factory workers for a national movement, provided the idea of a monarch, which has dominated all preceding national movements, be entirely left aside. It seems hardly probable, furthermore, that with the results already achieved, there will be any lack of money for the propagation of the idea of a national dictatorship. These facts, coupled with the magnetism and oratorical ability of the National Socialist leader, speak for a rapid and consistent development of the German “Fascisti.”

  Long after World War II, Smith would write The Facts of Life, an autobiographical manuscript that he tried but failed to publish. There, he recalled h
is meeting with Hitler in 1922. “The diary I kept in Munich indicates that I was deeply impressed with his personality and thought it likely he would play an important role in German politics,” he wrote. “I must confess, however, that I did not see him as the future ruler of most of Europe.”

  On November 17, just as Smith was making his rounds in Munich, Wiegand came to see Ambassador Houghton in the Berlin embassy again. He told the envoy about his meeting with Hitler, how the Nazi leader claimed to be seeking “some arrangement” with France, and indicated that he might try to stage a coup and install a dictatorship.

  Finding this report about Hitler “disquieting,” Houghton decided to write a confidential letter to Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes on November 21, not waiting for Smith’s report from his meeting with Hitler that was taking place on the same day. While Houghton mistakenly lumped Hitler together with the monarchists, much of his letter would prove to be surprisingly accurate.

  “The most active of the Monarchist groups is headed by a young Austrian named Hitler who is in control, it is estimated, of thirty thousand armed men, and, who, by his vehemence and fanaticism and by his dominating and attractive personality, is rapidly becoming the leader of the whole movement,” Houghton reported, mentioning that he had dispatched a military attaché to learn more about him.

  Modeled after its Italian counterparts, the ambassador continued, “This Fascisti movement is unquestionably spreading throughout Germany . . . It offers a method and means by which conservative people of all shades of political opinion can get together and organize to meet and repel Socialist aggression . . . it is not unlikely to bring within its ranks a large share of the population.”

  Murphy, the acting consul in Munich, wasn’t nearly as early in spotting the danger Hitler represented. He would admit later that he was initially misled about the Nazi leader by Paul Drey, a German employee of the consulate who was a member of a distinguished Jewish family with deep Bavarian roots. The two men attended some of Hitler’s early meetings, and, at the end of the first one, Drey indignantly told Murphy: “How does this Austrian upstart dare to tell us Germans what to do?”

  After witnessing some other appearances by Hitler, Murphy asked Drey, “Do you think these agitators will ever get far?”

  “Of course not!” Drey replied. “The German people are too intelligent to be taken in by such scamps.”

  The German staffer was very much old-school—and he responded to the growing Nazi presence in an old-school way. Once when he and Murphy stopped at a tailor shop to order a suit, the tailor was openly rude. Guessing what was going on, Murphy asked if the man was a member of the Nazi Party. “Yes, I am a follower of Herr Hitler,” he responded proudly. When they were out of the shop, Drey asked Murphy if he had noticed what he had done to show his contempt for the Nazi tailor. The American confessed he hadn’t. “I did not tip my hat to him when we left!” Drey explained, as if that nongesture must have devastated its target.

  Murphy only met Hitler for a direct conversation once, in early 1923. He was probably still influenced by Drey at that point, since he clearly did not attach much importance to it at the time. In a report back to Washington titled “Bavaria’s Political Situation,” dated March 17, 1923, Murphy wrote at length about a monarchist conspiracy there, adding a short section at the very end labeled “Interview with Adolf Hitler.” The American’s reason for requesting the meeting with Hitler was to see whether there was any truth to the rumors that Henry Ford, who was well known for his anti-Semitic views, had provided support to his movement.

  “Mr. Hitler was cordial and stated to the main inquiry that unfortunately Mr. Ford’s organization has so far made no money contributions to the party,” Murphy reported. “He stated that his funds were principally contributed by patriotic Germans living abroad.”

  The two men then discussed the tensions surrounding the decision by France and Belgium to occupy the industrial Ruhr Valley in January of that year as punishment for Germany’s failure to pay reparations. Murphy reported that Hitler considered this occupation “a question involving the economic and political life or death of Germany and cannot be compromised.” The Nazi leader clearly backed the campaign of passive resistance that had already started, and suggested that if the French military pushed across the Rhine into Bavaria “an active campaign would certainly ensue.” Murphy related those sentiments without comment, suggesting that he wasn’t particularly worried by them.

  As for Murphy’s superiors in the State Department, they weren’t necessarily appreciative of his efforts to learn more about the volatile politics of the region. In a letter to Murphy dated April 8, 1924, Wilbur J. Carr, writing on behalf of the secretary of state, complained that “a large proportion of the reports received from Munich dealt with political and politico-economic subjects” during the previous year. While acknowledging that “the disturbed political conditions have perhaps over-shadowed commercial development,” he urged the consular officials to focus more on “the promotion of American commerce.”

  Murphy took the message to heart, at least to the extent that he worked harder on his reporting on commercial issues. But he also began taking Hitler seriously, while Drey persisted in dismissing him and the Nazis as aberrations—even after they took power. As late as 1938, Murphy—alarmed by the news that a Munich synagogue had been burned—flew back to that city to persuade his former employee to flee the country. He also assured him that he would arrange for him to find a job with the State Department elsewhere. Drey said he appreciated his concern, but he wasn’t going. “No, this is a temporary madness. Self-respecting Germans will not tolerate these louts much longer,” he insisted.

  Paul Drey would die in Dachau.

  When Captain Smith was preparing for his trip to Munich, Warren Robbins, a colleague at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, placed a phone call to Ernst Hanfstaengl in the Bavarian capital. Explaining that Smith would be going south, he asked a favor: “Look after him and introduce him to a few people, will you?” It was a minor request that would prove to have major consequences.

  Robbins knew that Hanfstaengl would be happy to oblige. He and Hanfstaengl had been classmates at Harvard and performed in a production of the Hasty Pudding Club together. The show was called Fate Fakirs, and Hanfstaengl—who, just like Smith, was 6 feet 4 inches tall—played the role of a Dutch girl called Gretchen Spootsfeiffer, decked out in feminine garb. “I was the leading soprano there—the falsetto voice,” he recalled. This was a towering, husky young man who always loved an audience.

  Born in Bavaria in 1887, Hanfstaengl was “half American,” as he put it, the son of a German father and American mother with equally impressive lineage. “Putzi,” which means “little fellow” in Bavarian and stuck as his nickname from an early age, proudly offered this description of the paternal side of his family: “The Hanfstaengls were substantial folk. For three generations they were privy councillors to the Dukes of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and well-known as connoisseurs and patrons of the arts.” Putzi’s grandfather had been famous for his art reproduction work, and then his early use of photography. His father kept the family arts business going and expanded it by opening galleries in London and New York.

  Putzi’s mother Katharine, whose maiden name was Sedgwick, came from one of New England’s truly eminent families. Her maternal uncle was General John Sedgwick, a Civil War hero. Her father was William Heine, an architect by training who had fled Dresden after the revolution of 1848, worked on the decorations of the Paris Opera, and then emigrated to the United States. There, he joined Admiral Perry as his official illustrator on his expedition to Japan. He, too, became a Civil War general, and he helped carry Abraham Lincoln’s coffin at his funeral. Thus, it was hardly surprising that Putzi was dispatched to Harvard in 1905, both to learn more about his American heritage and to prepare him to take over the family art gallery on New York’s Fifth Avenue.

  When discussing his Harvard days, Putzi always dwelled on his prominence and connectio
ns there. “I hate to say it myself: I was popular in my class,” he eagerly pointed out. Monumentally vain, Hanfstaengl was right on that score: whether he was playing Wagner or banging out marching songs on the piano for the football team, he ingratiated himself with the Harvard crowd, mingling easily with the likes of T. S. Eliot, Walter Lippmann, Robert Benchley and John Reed.

  But it was an off-campus exploit that catapulted him to wider fame. On a cold morning in the spring of 1906, he was waiting for practice tryouts for the crew team on the Charles River. As Putzi recalled, “Some fool of a canoeist got into difficulties in the swift current and tipped himself out.” Without hesitating, Putzi grabbed a boat and rowed out to the canoeist who was floundering badly. Fully clothed, he jumped into the cold water and managed to push the man up into the boat. The next day, the headline in the Boston Herald proclaimed, “Hanfstaengl, Harvard’s Hero.”

  Putzi maintained that this episode was responsible for his getting to know another famous Harvard student: Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., the eldest son of the president. In the winter of 1908, the father—“a fellow extrovert,” as Putzi described him—invited him to Washington. His strongest recollection of that first of several meetings with TR was a stag party in the White House basement and “of breaking seven bass strings on his magnificent Steinway Grand.”

  After Harvard, Hanfstaengl returned to Germany for a year of military service in the Royal Bavarian Foot Guards, standing guard at the royal palace and generally feeling that he was trapped in an anachronistic world. He spent another year studying in Grenoble, Vienna and Rome before returning to the United States and taking charge of the family gallery on Fifth Avenue. Eating often at the Harvard Club, he met another Roosevelt—FDR, who was then a young New York state senator. He also reconnected with the elder Theodore Roosevelt. The former president told him his military service must have been good for him. “I saw something of your army at Doeberitz as the Kaiser’s guest, and discipline like that never hurt anybody,” he said. “No nation can degenerate which maintains those standards.”