by Ernst Hanfstaengl

Perhaps the only literate member of Hitler's inner circle in the 1930s, Ernst Hanfstaengl was a Harvard-educated German-American publisher who came back to a broken Germany in 1921, where he witnessed the phenomenal speaking power of young Adolf Hitler in a Munich beer hall. In this 1957 memoir, translated by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian John Willard Toland, Hanfstaengl tells how he introduced Hitler to members of higher society and helped him advance the party. Yet as Hitler's fanatical theories and ideas hardened and he surrounded himself with rabid extremists like Goering, Hess, and Goebbels, Hanfstaengl was increasingly estranged. By 1937 he had become an unwelcome voice of reason and had to flee for his life. 308 pages.