Hitler Audiobook By Ernst Hanfstaengl cover art

Hitler

The Memoir of a Nazi Insider Who Turned Against the Fuhrer

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Hitler

By: Ernst Hanfstaengl
Narrated by: Robin Sachs
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About this listen

An intimate friend of Adolf Hitler’s who turned against him during the Nazi rise to power delves into the character of one of history’s most evil dictators.

Of American and German parentage, Ernst Hanfstaengl graduated from Harvard and ran the family business in New York for a dozen years before returning to Germany in 1921. By chance he heard a then little-known Adolf Hitler speaking in a Munich beer hall and, mesmerized by his extraordinary oratorical power, was convinced the man would some day come to power. As Hitler’s fanatical theories and ideas hardened, however, he surrounded himself with rabid extremists such as Goering, Hess, and Goebbels, and Hanfstaengl became estranged from him. But with the Nazi’s major unexpected political triumph in 1930, Hitler became a national figure, and he invited Hanfstaengl to be his foreign press secretary. It is from this unique insider’s position that the author provides a vivid, intimate view of Hitler - with his neuroses, repressions, and growing megalomania - over the next several years.

In 1937, four years after Hitler came to power, relations between Hanfstaengl and the Nazis had deteriorated to such a degree that he was forced to flee for his life, escaping to Switzerland. Here is a portrait of Hitler as you’ve rarely seen him.

©1957, 2011 Ernst Hanfstaengl. Introduction copyright c. 1994, 2011 by John Toland. Afterword copyright c. 1994, 2011 by Egon Hanfstaengl (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
Europe Historical World War II Military War Holocaust Imperialism Prisoners of War Switzerland

Editorial reviews

All tyrants start somewhere. The most infamously diabolical tyrant of the modern age was Adolf Hitler. Ernst Hanfstaengl seeks to share his experiences from within Hitler's inner circle. Ernst describes his first meeting of the outspoken orator named Adolf in 1921, through his firsthand accounts of Hitler's rise to power as Fuhrer and the eventual betrayal that led to his fleeing from Germany as the Nazi party turned again him. It is not very often that such looming and reviled characters from history are able to be represented in a frank manner, but performer Robin Sachs brings a great urgency and realism to Mr. Hanfstaengl's work in Hitler: The Memoir of a Nazi Who Turned Against the Fuhrer.