Andrew Nagorski, Author, "Hitlerland"

this week on Q&A our guest is Andrew Nagurski vice-president of the east-west Institute an international affairs think-tank his new book is called Hitler land American eyewitnesses to the Nazi rise to power and rinder Gorski where did you get the idea for your book Hitler land I was thinking for a long time what would be my next book yeah I go through these periods where you're you're sort of searching for topics I've always never wanted to force a topic and it was a conversation I remember very vividly with my wife we were driving somewhere and she said you know there's been all these books recently about Americans in Paris Americans in London has anyone ever really done a book about the American experience in Germany and even though we had lived in Germany twice as I was the Newsweek correspondent and bond in the Cold War days and then in Berlin post Cold War days I never really thought about that I picked up a book a memoir here or there but as when I began to explore I realized nobody had really examined the American experience in Germany from the end of World War one right through Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war against the United States by Hitler and then the next question of course is are the stories there what are the sources will it be is it a story you can weave together and once I began exploring that what what was out there both in published unpublished and memoirs and and and Diaries and letters I just found myself fascinated from the get-go did it have any impact on you when Eric Larsen came out with his book garden of beasts well of course I learned when I was almost concluded with my my basically had finished my manuscript when I realized that this book was coming out and you know my first reaction was why is someone else writing about this subject but then I quickly realized he is writing at a much more focused narrow slice not to belittle in any way what he did he did a very interesting book but he focused on William Dodd the first American ambassador to Germany on it when Hitler took power and his daughter who are part of my story too but they are only a one part one of many or two of many characters in my story which spans a much broader era so in the end I think a lot number of people have told me that and if they read Larson's book that they made them even more curious about the other Americans and the broader context of this and I hope Hitler land provides that to them give us some of the names I mean hardcase Smith was there Richard C hottelet of CBS but who are some of the other names that popped up in this story from the end of World War one to the beginning of World War two and well her Lynn well mostly in Berlin but some in Munich and some other places because I decided to do first of all see whoever left interesting material behind in a couple cases I could still interview people richard hottelet was still life of course who was one of the original Mauro Boys and later at with NBC Angus therma who is a young ap correspondent at the time and later on when onto the long career in the CIA was someone I managed to interview he was among the last Americans interned in Germany after the declaration of war and so there were a few people but usually it was I ended up speaking to the kids sometimes grandkids and and getting the written records that they had left behind other and family archives are in our public archives libraries and so forth and so so there was you know a stunning number of people there who some of whom were well-known of course you mentioned William Shirer very famous german journalist earlier there are people like edgar ants or Mauer of the Chicago Daily News who was in his era one of the real real powerhouses there was Hans Kaltenborn who was a major broadcaster in the early radio days there was yeah of course Charles Lindbergh comes through Germany where everyone has heard or of that but you also have people even John F Kennedy Flitz through Germany in 1937 of his diary entries are not terribly revealing other than the fact that he's interested in the quote unquote bundle of fun he picks up at the border but yeah I tried to get us get a sense of those people who actually were there for longer and really observed things w eb des bois for instance not not a name you never would normally associate with germany the black sociologist historian but he spends six months honest on a fellowship in 1935 and 36 and has some fascinating insights about germans racial doctrine the contrast with the united states and of course the play off 36 Olympics so you know you have people like George Kennan who are associated with Russia who have most people don't realize that spent one tour in Germany which happened to be those crew critical years right before World War two who doesn't look good in retrospect well there are a number of people who don't look great and there are a number of people who I'd say have a very mixed record and one thing I tried to do in this book was not to be sort of rendering judgment on these characters the whole point in the book and the reason I wrote a book about about this period which I find fascinating but I would never have written a straight history of the period there been so many so many very accomplished historians have done that and very effectively but if Hitler Lance succeeds it succeeds in the sense of putting the reader in the shoes of the Americans there at the time seeing things piecemeal and then trying to figure out what was happening what and and it inevitably raises the question what would you have known you me anybody else if we had been there at the time it all seems so clear in retrospect but it wasn't clear then and the more I delved into this the more I felt I'd wanna pass rigid judgment on people of course there were people who are very prescient again and Edgar Ansel Maurer was one of them this this Chicago Daily News correspondent there was a consul general in Berlin called George Messersmith who is very very outspoken very courageous there was a young military attache Truman Smith who plays a very significant role in my book who I think was very perceptive both about Hitler whom he met as far back as 1922 and about the German military buildup and then there were people who clearly blew it Dorothy Thompson most famously she was the most famous American women woman correspondent of that era very pioneering very smart reporter in many ways but she goes in and interviews Hitler and November of 1931 for the for the first time at that point Hitler's party is really on the rise a lot of people are predicting he's gonna take power and she writes immediately after her interview I thought I was going to interview it meet the future leader Germany within 50 seconds I realized I was not such was the startling insignificance of this man who has set the world of Gog and went on to talk about how he had this this look in his eyes that is common to hysterics and alcoholics and geniuses and how he doesn't really yeah he has a verse often feminine side he's going to be no match for the true German politicians but I find what was interesting about that and I also should add that Dorothy Thompson later obviously radically revised her views and did some hard-hitting reporting that got her expelled but that that that even those mistakes of what I call the first drafts of history that we as journalists always try to write are revealing and because they explain a lot about how Hitler fooled a lot of people and why people so many people did not take him seriously whether they were journalists diplomats or Germans themselves or even some in many German Jews Dorothy Thompson was married to Sinclair Lewis of course yes and in talking about famous people there were many famous literary characters and coming through Germany Sinclair Lewis was one he comes he marry he falls in love with Dorothy Thompson Thomas Wolfe comes comes to Germany okay he was very entranced by Germany comes there a few times hailed as a hero at first and then Anna and when he first comes in 1936 he really is pretty much oblivious to a lot of the what's going on because he's just basking in his fame by the next time he comes a year later he's much more aware and writes a very piercing novella I have a thing to tell you which becomes part a part of his laya of of a larger book later and so yeah you had yeah you even have a comic or came across an entry in one diary of a of another correspondent in 1927 well Hemingway was just through town and talking you know I saw him on the street with Sinclair Sinclair Lewis you know Josephine Baker comes to town she in 1925 we think of her always as Paris you know you know and entertaining the audience's in in Paris and the foliage there but she hears about Berlin this amazing party town in the 20s and and she decides to take her whole troupe to Berlin and despite the fact that they're already some Nazi protesters outside shouting racist slogans inside the German audiences love her she's the star of the show she's invited to the after parties she performs there often just in her loincloth and and and and she says there's no freer greater place than than Berlin which is something we tend to forget about Germany let's go back and recap your own life and experience you were here for book notes in 1990 three how many books have you written this is my fifth book where do you work now I'm now at the east-west Institute which is a new york-based think-tank started in 1980 in Cold War days so east-west would meant yeah back-channel diplomacy between the Soviet Union the United States NATO pact or NATO and Warsaw Pact now the Institute deals with all sorts of issues China cybersecurity economic security issues I've been there for last almost four years since I left Newsweek how many different places did you live writing for Newsweek and anybody else well for Newsweek I was basically abroad for about 20 years Hong Kong Moscow twice once expelled in the Soviet days bond Berlin Rome Washington briefly so what is how many places that make you know several we know you were born in Scotland but a Polish parents right and your wife's polish yes and at the time you had four kids and you still have working I still have four kids and now have seven grandkids how old are the kids the kids are in there they're all all I'm the last one just finished college last about a year of let me get this right about two years ago and we now have and the other kids the other three kids are all married and have kids of their own as well and you live where I live in New York just outside of New York and Pelham and our kids are scattered in Juneau la Austin and New York in your book you talk a lot about William Shire mmm-hmm who was he where got some video to show in a moment but tell us who he was before we show that William Shriver at the time of when I'm writing this story is just finished he's just turned 30 he's in Paris he's been he's been a writer for various publications in the United States he is he is desperate to go to what do you think is the next big story which is Germany he says you know I'm dying of boredom in Paris now most people don't we didn't think Paris is a boring assignment but in fact that goes to show at once again that as a journalist your instinct is always to go to that next big story he could see that it was happening in Germany and in in 1932 34 33 after Hitler takes power he gets an assignment from Hearst international news service to go to Germany he goes there is a incredibly energetic perceptive correspondent eventually is hired by ed Murrow of CBS one of the original moral boys and and and he stays in Germany or in Vienna right through the beginning of the war he writes at the time his bring his but he publishes his Berlin Diaries after it leaves the police Berlin which comes out in 1940 which has a huge impact in the United States because the writing is wonderful and it's very vivid and it really bring him brought home what was happening in Germany of course much later long after the war he produces the rise and fall the Third Reich the book that he's most famous for which is still I think one of the most authoritative studies of that period despite all the subsequent books that have followed did you check to see by chance how many of those books have sold the rise and fall of the third well they Simon and Schuster happens to be my publisher has just reissued that book on the 50th anniversary of its publication I would assume it's we're talking yeah millions of copies let's watch part of a documentary in 1968 just a tiny bit so we can see what William Shire Shire looked like buried amid the debris of the Third Reich the demigod who caused so many deaths was himself perishable the architect of so much evil was after all only a man Adolphe Hitler is dead the Third Reich he built which lasted so short a time 12 years but which in its calculated butchery of human life and the human spirit surpassed anything this earth has seen is now but a painful memory how did it happen that an ancient and cultured people steeped in Christianity kolevatov sand sciences preeminent in modern technology who gave us Luther and count Bach and Beethoven Goethe and Einstein collapsed into savage barbarism in the mid 20th century to seek the answers we must follow the Germans and the rise of their strange leader through the turbulent years between 1920 and 1945 what was his posture what was he writing about Hitler and the Germans when he was there well first of all he was speaking he his thoughts which you could see from his Diaries are very clear while other people in their correspondence and diaries are often wondering is Hitler for real the big question for many people was not whether Hitler was you know was he essentially a demagogue or not everyone knew he was a demagogue but does he mean this stuff even whether or not you've read mine Kampf that could he really believe this these things he's writing about Jews and others and labels around taking over the Soviet Union and conquering conquering the Slavic lands and Shirer from the very beginning takes it completely seriously and he gets as much of that into into his into his writing as possible and then is broadcasting all the broadcasting later becomes a problem because it's it's it's heavily censored as a small aside I thought you know that clip was wonderful I also you know I suppose I always Shire a debt because my interest in this was for all sorts of reasons but of course I also read rise and fall the Third Reich not as a young young young college student and I influenced me greatly but the book's title I should say in part is due to Shire and a couple of other journalists this is not Hitler land is not made up by me Hitler land was a term that Shire and a few of his colleagues used informally among themselves about the country they were covering that cover of your book is that I'm I didn't look is that Nuremberg no it's actually I think it's in Dortmund or somewhere out it looks like a Nuremberg rally it's a very similar rally in another city but I mean what I particularly like about the cover when the art department of Simon & Schuster proposed this cover usually when you go through a book cover that you go through various drafts we all looked I said that's perfect because you're not looking straight on at Hitler you're looking over his shoulder and again it's supposed to convey it which instantly conveys the idea of the premise of the book is that you're getting a different angle on these familiar events you think you know about him I thought I knew about him but until I wrote it and did the research for Hitler land I had no idea about the experiences of many month the people who are essentially my predecessors as correspondence or diplomats in Berlin and I in despite all the time I spend in Germany I hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about what would have been like to have been a correspondent there in the 20s and 30s and you know how how how would you have operated what would you have noticed are not noticed much less how would you have acted who was pussy-wussy Homme Stengel one of the of course one of the most notorious characters I'd say in the book his full name is Ernst Tom Stengel he was he called himself a half American his father was was from a very distinguished Bavarian art family his of art dealers his mother was it was I was from a family the Sedgwick family in Boston and a born-and-bred American family her father so puts his grandfather had been a Civil War general he in fact had even carried help carry Lincoln's coffin and so is born in Germany but is sort of he's you know German American in he goes to Harvard class of Oh 1909 among his classmates for instances are Dean Acheson Archibald MacLeish Teddy Roosevelt jr. he even is invited to the White House by Teddy jr. because is a very colorful character a very tall guy very entertaining plays the piano wonderfully he's invited to play the piano in the White House and eventually is playing the piano for Hitler because what happens is after he graduates from Harvard he runs the family art business in on Fifth Avenue in New York he meets an American woman who's fat whose parents came from Germany but she's a born and bred New Yorker her name's Helen and they this and in 1921 as a married couple they moved to Munich and they're very soon he meets Hitler he becomes one of Hitler's earliest propagandists and interesting enough because of his whole American background the connecting connecting point for many Americans who want to meet Hitler once Hitler begins to rise in prominence so his story which is told throughout this book is is one which intersects with so many of the Americans and what I found also fascinating about the research in the book is you get offenses you get certain scenes where where someone say oh I saw he came to my house Louie Lochner the AP bureau chief for dinner and he wore this strange-looking Nazi uniform for the first time this is right after Hitler takes power and he said he was he's got British tailoring and and then you get the description of that same scene from somebody else who saw that day Hamilton fish Armstrong the editor of Foreign Affairs and so you begin to triangulate and see what we are that these stories not only intersect but they reinforce each other and that's yeah it's one of the great fun parts of being kind of the amateur historian journalist and in in and in tell her discovering these stories setting these scenes which ought to tell you a great deal about about you know the the atmosphere of the times and here's who actually is is playing Harvard marching songs for Hitler in the early days and Hitler saying wow those are great they have a great beat we should use them at our rallies and in fact then Hitler then puts he composes some marches for for Hitler yeah it's the kind of thing if you you thought about it a kind of a in a novel or a movie script you say oh that's - yeah that's it that's that's - too crazy to imagine but this was for nothing was too absurd in this situation what was the relationship between Hitler and Helen puts his wife Helen was an attractive woman who very quickly became very friendly with Hitler as well in fact Hitler was coming over to their house in the early 20s when he was still a local figure not not a national figure hey yeah and he was clearly attracted to Helen now I won't say what the nature of this attraction was it's hard to say Helen believed that he he was sort of in awe of her in many ways the subject of Hitler's sexual proclivities is a very long subject and there are many theories there was nothing I don't think sexual between them but he he was he liked being in her company and most significantly in 1923 there's the Beer Hall Putsch Hitler tries to seize power in Munich and the Nazis are fired upon by the police Hitler is is injured his shoulder is dislocated several Nazis are killed including than his aide who he was marching arm in arm with and he seeks refuge in Helens house has already fled to Austria and the next morning he's he's in the house and Helen knows that the it gets a call from her mother-in-law saying the police are coming to your house next they're gonna they're looking for Hitler they're gonna arrest him and in this scene which I described in detail in the book he a Helen goes up to tell Hitler look get ready you're going to be arrested and he's got a gun in his hand and Helen at that point is convinced in her own mind that he's thinking of shooting himself and she grabs that gun from him think about the implications of that 19:23 if he had gone through with that if we can't know whether he would have gone through with that whether she was right but the idea that an American woman may have saved Hitler in 1923 from suicide and from and and and in in effect doomed the world to what what followed is rather staggering thought Hitler surd how long in prison and why he was then arrested in Helens house in 1923 he was brought to trial in early 1924 he was sentenced to five years in prison for this attempted push but he made he was treated very lightly by the authorities both by the judge who allowed him to just basically use the trial as this Tribune as this this staging ground to be able to tell the world about his theories and first time get really major made media attention and this was also the first time that many correspondents saw him and then he goes to prison and out of that five years he only spends 11 months in prison and he's treated very generously by the authorities he's treated almost like a hero there there's a lot of popular sentiment that supports him he dictates mine Kampf and during his time in prison he has visitors all the time people are sending him flowers now you have to recall the early 20s in Germany were time with not only Germany had been defeated in World War on losing a couple million men it was very demoralized there has been this period of hyperinflation people's savings wiped out this sense of total collapse and Hitler had played upon that and and and and and the buy more politicians the the new demo democracy that I've been that was created was proving to be very ineffective at the time so Hitler was able to benefit immensely from his prison time you sent me back to mine comp and by the way it's available for a charge on Google you can get all you read it and it just reminded me I mean and read it for a few years of this obsession with Jews what did did you find anything in your research that told you why and what did he say in Mayan comfy bodies well I mean basically the language about Jews is always vermin lice this sort of language the scourge that they of course the the stab-in-the-back theory that somehow Germany lost World War one because the Jewish politicians stabbed the the military in the back all of which you know is a very convenient excuse for what happened you know it was a classic scapegoating in terms of why the Jews for instance Helen Hoffs tangle talked about Hitler even in those early days coming over to her house and playing with her son Egon who was a few years old and being very very charming but they need something go off on a rant about Jews and she would say what many people have said since that somehow it could be traced back to his time in Vienna when he was he was relatively was an unsuccessful artist he tried to get in and get accepted into in do into a fine art school and been rejected that's another what if history but that he had developed a raging hatred of Jews by then how you explain that I'm not sure there's any simple answer but it certainly fueled his thinking fueled mine comp and someone like Dorothy Thompson when she interviewed Hitler's and won various perceptive comment where she made was take away the anti-semitism and the whole case he makes collapses because it's all based on that and his notion of race is inferior races with Jews at the top of list but Slavs not not far behind by the way how many countries ban that now from being bought or read or well Germany still has the ban that's the primary one because it's the copyright belongs to the Bavarian authorities and they haven't lifted it officially I think is expires in two in another year or two so even in Germany it will be available I'm not sure how many other countries still ban it my feeling is it makes no sense to ban it first of all if anybody who tries to read and if you picked it up recently you're reminded of this it is a turgid track you know it's it's hundreds of pages of Hitler just ranting and it's it this is not going to turn someone on to the Nazis in fact I described a scene in my book where Otto Strasser who's one of the early Nazis who later break broke with Hitler describes in 1927 Nuremberg Party rally where he and a few buddies are having dinner at a restaurant and each admits to each other well we never read all of mine Kampf we couldn't get through it and then they said okay next negative and various Nazi officials were coming to join them for dinner he said the first knots the official joints who says he's read the whole book will stick them with a tap and they go through the evening various people join them they couldn't stick anybody with the tab everybody had to pay for themselves here's some video of famous American that you write about it's let's watch and you can explain this price has now been defeated and despite the propaganda and confusion of recent months it is now obvious that England is losing your and I have been forced to the conclusion that we cannot win this war for England regardless of how much assistance we send that is why the America first committee has been formed are we operating under a government by representation or are we operating under a government by sumter huge Charles Lindbergh Charles Lindbergh is most famous for exactly that that sort of thing that you should just use that clip you should saw and of course for his solo flight across the Atlantic that made him you know the biggest celebrity of his era the kidnapping and murder of his son but then in relationship to Germany all of us have heard the story of Lindbergh his sympathy is apparently sympathy for a lot of what what was going on in Germany and then his very fervent efforts to keep America out of the war at all cost but the part of a Lindbergh story that I focus on in Hitler land is a different one and that is what and something again that I had not realized was that the origins of his visits to Germany was not the fact that say the Germans invited him because they thought he sympathized with them or that he went there because he sympathized with them initially is because this young in this military attache Truman Smith who had been in Germany in the early 20s first met Hitler then comes back as a senior at ashay in 35 is has got very good sources within the ver Mach the German army and it and and learning about how it's building up but he doesn't know much about the Luftwaffe the Air Force and he realizes that hit that Lindbergh's in France and in England traveling around as a celebrity and he comes up with the idea if I can get Hermann göring's Air Ministry to invite Lindbergh to Germany Goering who loves to show off will want to show this famous man everything and that's exactly what happens he comes to Germany yes he he is used by the Germans for propaganda purposes in many ways but he also gets to see the airfields the new planes and he knows those planes he knows a lot about aviation of course and he brings the military out of shades with him or do briefs them and provides some very good intelligence now his motive was probably to convince the Americans that look this is such a powerful country you don't want to mess with them but regardless of the motive there's real intelligence here and there's also then these amazing stories of the dinner like the lunch that Goering holds for for Lindbergh where Lindbergh at one point asked Goering I hear you have a pet lying can I see him and Lindbergh says oh yes come on in and so they bring him over to the library and calls this pet lion cub over on his lap now Goering is a big man in a white uniform the lion jumps up on his lap the various dinner guests including Truman is the lunch guests including Truman Smith and the Lindbergh's are there and suddenly the lion gets nervous and just lets loose the uniform terms bright yellow Goering goes flying out of the room changes and yeah this is the kind of thing that yeah again which are these episodes which which are which are incredible to to learn about and again hear about from different sources and in fact Truman Smith's daughter who is a who is still alive I had discovered after I talked to a great length the next day she called me and said oh by the way did you guys show you this photo on my refrigerator and I said no what photo on my refrigerator the one with during's lion she was about 12 years old at the time and after Goering is that incident with Doran's lion Goering sent the lion back to the Berlin Zoo and Truman Smith arranged for her to have a photo taken with it this is amidst all these tragic events there there is just a sense of a bit of a theater of the absurd here we have some more video and we were talking about Richard C hottelet earlier is he still alive yes he is how is he Richard must be 93 if I'm not mistaken on 93 or not right around 93 I believe maybe 94 at this point you're gonna see some other familiar faces is back in 1995 with alright but I think Helen Kirkpatrick is saying that she was a warmonger she thought it was important too that the United States stand up to Hitler mr. Chamberlain didn't like very much we didn't like mr. Chamberlain very much under Princeton secret sources the story of the Kristallnacht this infamous day and there goes the 10th of November 1938 where the Nazis turned their goon squads loose on little Jewish businesses and smashed their windows a crystal crystal night that got to be called this was led I mean it was there it was presented to people she didn't say always is this terrible isn't this awful if it was terrible it was awful as this perfectly plain people chose us to ignore it what happened to him when he was in Germany and how long was he there during that period from 23 up to the war know hottelet came in the 30s he was young man and I don't remember exactly which year he came in but he he was there for I think about three years two or three years first as a student and then then working as a wire service reporter and he'd speak German and yes yes yes he studied German and and many of the most of these reporters who spent any amount of time there did speak German and were you know we're quite proficient and secret Schultz who was who was the Chicago Tribune correspondent for the this entire period was was completely fluent in German she had she had actually studied in the German University for a while long before them before took power so but hottelet what happened to him was he he was picked up by the Gestapo he was the only American correspondent who was actually imprisoned by the kaga stop over several months in 1940 this is world war ii has started america's not yet in the war so american correspondents are still in germany but things are beginning to get more and more difficult for them and there are various theories why hottelet was picked up and held he was he was not treated anywhere nearly as badly as most gestapo prisoners there was still something special about being an American I marry member Hitler was trying to still keep America out of the war if possible but he was he was detained for say he was kept in prison for several months and then eventually released there and but many of his fellow journalists simply felt it was both that hottelet had been more and more disgusted by what he'd seen around him and wasn't was making that very clear and but also was a warning to other journalists what often happens in any totalitarian society when you're you're a foreign correspondent one journalist may get picked on whether or imprisoned or expelled or so forth to basically tell the other journalist watch your step this can happen to you too what was that what did you find that you didn't know oh there there's a long list of things I would say I mean first of all yes something like the - like the backstory on Charles Lindbergh was one of them the other one I think it's it's in a more general sense aside from very specific incidents that so many of which I did not know about it was the sense of just how creeping the understanding was of what was happening in Germany and it was one of the things I expected going into this project was that as Hitler rose it would be a pretty linear progression in terms of understanding of him by Americans in fact it was anything but linear Howard K Smith the future ABC News anchor hey who is who is a wire service reporter and talked about four stages when Americans came to Germany or many foreigners came to Germany after Hitler took power one is at first sort of being completely in awe of Germany it's a well-ordered society people seemingly very polite it's it was beginning to rebound from the depression and so this admiration then to Sonny Wow there on all this military here but it's kind of exciting they are marching bands and there's the marching boots as thousands of people and it's yeah people are excited third stage is suddenly oh my god these people are being trained to kill to conquer and the fourth stage is other terror some some Americans went through those four stages really fast some only were stay stuck at one or two some went up to three then back to two it was very interesting that say Truman Smith this military a Shay Carl found vegan a Hearst correspondent to who the first American correspondent to meet Hitler in 1922 when very few people have heard of Hitler have a pretty good read on him in those early days saying he's a what's called a marvelous demagogue not in terms of admiring and admiring his skills and say this guy could go far in Bavaria now in those days that was that was as far as the imagination went but still that wasn't a bad bad bad perception okay how big by the way is the very inside Germany well it's you know it's the southern state of Germany it Munich is is its center I don't sure exactly in terms of full Terra but it but it has always been sort of an entity onto itself it is is near the Austrian border so it has a distinct culture by the way Hitler always felt much more comfortable in Munich and in above area than he did in Berlin let me show you took some video of Harry K Smith for those who don't remember him hottelet was German he spoke German better than most Germans did he despised that of Hitler and he said so he was just an obvious target if they were going to give somebody never going to and also the Germans forbade us to go out and hunt for ruins after the early bombings of Berlin wouldn't allow it he got a bicycle and went out they really were furious that hottelet they arrested him and they raided the office I was on the dead man shift that night so I was there when the Gestapo came in about eight big men took the office apart and they wouldn't tell me what it was about so I couldn't do I couldn't do their erection his wife Dorothy Rex never phoned me and as the phone rang the head of the Gestapo said to me you speak German nothing but German so I said hello and she said oh how Arden I said yeah and I'd be answered in German why are you continually answering me in German I said I'm not allowed to do anything else she said oh I see so she hung up and went to the Foreign Office and found out what was happening and hottelet was held for several months finally he was traded for two spies two German spies we arrested in the United States did Richard see a harlot worried at the time about you know being held there forever I mean how afraid was he that the Germans are gonna do some time you know I think he probably in the initial days from his account or he wrote up his story and then I talked to him about it when he first first thrown in of course in that moment even though you can say rationally they're unlikely to keep me forever they're all likely to kill me torture me because I'm an American correspondent not for that reason and because there's still a reason not to antagonize the United States asthma and that overtly but intellectually you can think that but you realize what kind of a regime this is and you can be very worried but I think what very soon after he was transferred from one prison to another given better conditions and an American and embassy official was allowed to even visit him so the signal was there that something would eventually be negotiated so and he was a young man with a lot of courage a lot of Drive maybe naivete in some ways but but I didn't I don't think he was right all that rattled except for right in the very beginning as anyone would be when did the people in the United States start paying attention well it's interesting to see that among those correspondents and diplomats who were the most worried about what was happening and really thought there's a looming confrontation here we in the United States are not going to be able to duck this as much as we'd like to they they were very frustrated by the fact that many people in nighted state simply didn't want to hear that remember the US had reluctantly gone into World War one felt well what did World War One solve yeah it had gone through the depression we're still struggling their way out of the depression so the last thing most most Americans wanted to hear and this was not just the America first movement and so forth but many ordinary Americans even the Roosevelt administration at first was very reluctant to really absorb the full import of the messages that were coming out of Germany from the people who were very perceptive someone when and it wasn't again just journalists or diplomats for instance James McDonald was the head of the foreign policy association in New York he comes over to Germany right after Hitler takes power and actually gets throughput see Hobbs dangled a meeting with Hitler and he comes away convinced that everything he's saying about the Jews and about conquest and so forth should be taken literally but what happens to put see before it's all over put see this is again nothing is simple with put see in 1936 or 37 he has been falling out of favor with Hitler and is be increasing marginalized by by especially by Joseph Goebbels the chief propagandist who they never got along and and at one point he is he is taken up in a plane and told he's going to be sent to Spain on a mission during the Spanish Civil War and he's told by the pilot when he gets up in the plane that I'm told to parachute you behind enemy lines and and and and he and the plane stops before they leave Germany for a refueling that pilot feigns a mechanical thing it says you may want to get out of here he flees and goes to Switzerland and it eventually ends up in England he's convinced there was a plot to kill him the Nazis later claimed oh there wasn't we were just we were just playing around with this guy who knows what what that meant but he is eventually when when I picked up a day when World War two started as as an enemy alien in Britain he shipped off to Canada but even then he uses connections to get to a message to Roosevelt and saying I can help you with intelligence on Hitler he's brought over to the United States his son by the way at that point is has recently graduated from Harvard and is in a US Army uniform is there any of his relatives are there any of his relatives left I met his grandson in Munich who remembers his GRA both both and he'll and his grandmother very well they lived into the 70s so his grand grand son is live in Munich what happened to their marriage there that fell apart in the mid 30s put C among other things was a well known ladies man and that parties could be could be a rat rather forward and and finally Helen ditched him interestingly enough Helen at one point writes that that Hitler asks about her and says oh and learns that she's divorced he said oh it's about time and she's kind of happy that to hear that he's she's still thinking about him so she divorces and she goes back to the United States in the late thirties spends the war years there but in the 50s comes back and then decides to move back to Germany and spends the rest of her life there and it dies there in the 70s as does put see what parallel if any I'm afraid to ask this question people think I'm suggesting Hitler is represented by somebody in this country but what parallel to what happened in the via our republic and then what happened when Hitler took over is there here in the United States at this time in our lives any you know I don't I never feel that there is a straight historical parallel and story straight analogy and Hitler was such an extreme case that I'm very hesitant to make make direct analogies but I think there are a number of lessons from you know from which I took away just from living vicariously through the lives of these Americans and Hitler's Germany one is a powerful demagogue individual whoever he may be can really influence the course of history a of course he the the conditions have to be right the the economic conditions the political climate and this doesn't take away that from the responsibility of his followers but it struck me in terms of that incident where Hitler may or may not have committed suicide and tried to commit suicide who was so close to being shot and when when he held when he tried the push in 1923 and other episodes that without Hitler most of the and his personal qualities which is these Americans right about which at first are off-putting to most visitors usually you just see that rants these are news clips but the people watch them closely say is a master psychologist in the way he worked the crowds the night Nazis would probably never have one power Germany may have gone into a dictatorship a military dictatorship extreme right-wing containership but unlikely you would have had the Third Reich the Holocaust something on that dimension the other one is that when an extremist and our extremist movement makes threats that seem absurd and suicidal even that and out of your rational frame of reference that doesn't mean that's enough reason to disregard them and the big mistake so many people made was to dismiss him saying it would be suicidal for Hitler to act on all his threats and we don't have a lot of time so that's he to do very quickly but the number of things you wrote about that had been written about for years but I want you to define them events night of the Long Knives in 1934 what was it 9:00 at night of the Long Knives 1934 June 30th Hitler sends out his troops to basically do away with many of the people he perceives them as his enemies including people in the SA the stormtroopers who are seen as being getting out of hand the SS the more elite units resented them so he has several them murder he also has right of some some previous rivals within the party murdered like Gregor Strasser who was part of that old what was called the Socialist wing of the party at one point in the 20s seen as a rival there really was a socialist wing even though it was a racist socialist wing and then people like like the Bavarian the Bavarian official who presided who was in charge during during his trial the what's a brown shirt a brown shirt is this stormtrooper basically the bodyguards the thugs who who were the private army of Hitler as he was rising to power and then and then they were kind the auxiliary basically enforcers once he was in power you talked about the Beer Hall Putsch what's a push a push is a coup an attempt to overthrow a government in this case it was an attempt at first to overthrow the government the Bavarian government but they were saying they were then going to march to Berlin you write about three did other big events in 1938 the Angelus the Angelus yeah the Angelus was the annexation of Austria where Hitler simply marches his troops into Austria makes it part of the what greater Germany again that was part of Germany his plan in 1938 many German generals even wondered it was is Hitler out of his mind to go this far and he but he then annexes annexes Austria 30 September 38 was the Munich conference with Chamberlain yes that was where the fate of Czechoslovakia was in the balance and here again there are many Germans who believed this was a very dangerous move on Hitler's part but in fact Hitler gets the the British and the French to agree to the breakup of Czechoslovakia and suddenly basically whatever resistance there was might have been to Hitler in the military totally dissipates because it seems like he's getting everything he wants without even more with without any use of force the 9th and 10th of November Kristallnacht at richard hottelet was talking about yes the night of the broken glass where the a furious anti-semitic campaign is is unleashed where Jewish stores Jews are attacked many Jews are literally sometimes thrown out windows it's it's it's just an orgy of anti-semitism a signal that if anybody had any illusions at that point now this is this is for real this is strictly a small well oh and a small item but you write about I just had never seen his about his relationship Hitler's relationship with his half-sister well yeah with his half-sister and his niece by the daughter of his half-sister yeah and gely Ravel and who is he was in the in the 1920 late 1920s he's he was clearly infatuated with it with her or he's seen going about town with her eventually has her move into his apartment again there are rumors that this is there's something weirdly sexual about this who knows she is found okay in 1931 with a bullet through through her the official story is that she has committed suicide there are other people who say that there had been a big fight that day between Hitler and and Gally and there were even rumors and the socialist press that maybe he was somehow responsible for a death that he hushes this up and puts he actually is one of the people who is who is sent around around to make and make sure that this in this potential scandal is hushed up we do this from time and time some video of your past we go back to nineteen 89 wow you just do Colin shows here let's roll she's gonna go back over there soon I would expect so it's hard to stay away very long these days if you do you miss three revolutions how surprising it was all this to you the speed of events I think was a surprise for everyone but it was it was my feeling all along particularly on Romania that if something happened unfortunately it would have to happen the way it did in the sense of be a violent revolution as opposed to the very peaceful and gentle revolutions as they are called in the rest of Eastern Europe because China HS who left no middle ground for dissent for organized protest for some sort of compromise and therefore the only way to overthrow this regime was in the kind of confrontation we saw last week you can see by that video who has not changed you more hair where did that go well we used to have a minute but looking back over your own life are you how would you characterize what you've seen change since you know you're reporting life and and especially over in Russia and all that well I mean a part of my motivation probably for writing Hitler land is I was lucky enough to have been a reporter before during and after the transformation of the Europe of Eastern Europe the Soviet the collapse of the Soviet Union the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and so I have some feeling of what it is to live through historic events and how hard it is during that time when you're in the midst of it to just figure things out I know I always thought at some point that system will collapse I cannot say that I pray I prophesized when and how and we were all struck by the rapidity as I said there so I guess I made me more and more curious about other periods like that and then well what what lessons we learned from it of course the world has changed radically in every way the media has changed radically one of the striking things I found in in in writing Hitler land was what a powerful u.s. press corps there wasn't Berlin at one point fifty US correspondents in Berlin in the 30s representing all sorts of newspapers and wire services that no longer exist one last question is there any place in the world where we have 50 American correspondents I don't think so I can't imagine any place where we have 50 these days just I mean there are various freelancers who may may yeah but even if you add them all in and even in places like Beijing and Moscow these days I don't think our guest has been Andrew navorski his book is called Hitler land and the subtitle is American eyewitnesses to the Nazi rise to power we thank you very much for coming back thank you so much for a DVD copy of this program call one eight seven seven six six to seven seven to six for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program visit us at Q&A or QA programs are also available as c-span podcasts

Channel: C-SPAN

Views: 38,019

Keywords: q&a, c-span, cspan, Andrew Nagorski, Hitlerland, Adolf, Hitler, american, journalists, 1930s, anti-Semitism

Id: Q_-rAq_wGf4

Length: 58min 45sec (3525 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 14 2012