Andrew Nagorski: Hitlerland

The Greatest Battle

Last Stop Vienna

Birth of Freedom

Reluctant Farewell

“Andrew Nagorski, a deft storyteller, has plumbed the dispatches, diaries, letters, and interviews of American journalists, diplomats, and others who were present in Berlin to write a fascinating account of a fateful era.”

“Andrew Nagorski once again turns his perceptive, seasoned foreign correspondent’s eye to a dramatic historical subject. This eye-opening account of the Americans in 1920s and 1930s Berlin offers a totally new perspective on a subject we thought we already knew.”

“Andrew Nagorski’s Hitlerland is a fresh, compelling portrait of Nazi Germany, as seen through the eyes of a fascinating array of Americans who lived and worked there during Hitler’s rise to power. The extraordinary saga of Putzi Hanfstaengl, a Harvard graduate who became Hitler’s court jester, is just one of the many page-turning stories that make Hitlerland a book not to be missed.”

“The rise of Hitler and the Nazi state, one of the most consequential and profound narratives in all of world politics, receives compelling new treatment in Andrew Nagorski’s outstanding Hitlerland . By illuminating the disparate experiences of the era’s preeminent American diplomats, journalists, intellectuals, and others, Nagorski has created an engrossing, harrowing, and vividly drawn mosaic of eyewitness accounts to one of history’s most phenomenal catastrophes.”

“At times deliciously gossipy, at times thoroughly chilling, Hitlerland offers countless novel insights into Germany’s evolution from struggling democracy in the 1920s to totalitarian dictatorship in the 1930s. The intimate portraits from Hitler down add an almost tangible sense of the foibles, ambitions, insecurities, and perversities of the relatively small top Nazi elite whose actions plunged our world into a catastrophe from which we are yet fully to recover. The Americans themselves come alive as a group of intense, enterprising journalists and diplomats faced with the greatest challenge of their lives.”

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Copyright © 2012 by Andrew Nagorski

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition March 2012

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nagorski, Andrew.

Hitlerland : American eyewitnesses to the Nazi rise to power / by Andrew Nagorski.—1st Simon & Schuster hardcover ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Germany—Politics and government—1918–1933. 2. Germany—Politics and government—1933–1945. 3. Hitler, Adolf, 1889–1945. 4. Nazis—History. 5. Americans—Germany—Biography. 6. World War, 1939–1945—Personal narratives, American. 7. World War, 1939–1945—Social aspects—Germany. 8. Germany—Social conditions—1918–1933. 9. Germany—Social conditions—1933–1945. I. Title.

DD253.N225 2011

940.54’213—dc23 2011017360

ISBN 978-1-4391-9100-2

ISBN 978-1-4391-9102-6 (eBook)

Photo credits.

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