Hitler’s Piano Player: The Rise and Fall of Ernst Hanfstaengl, Confidant of Hitler, Ally of FDR
by Peter Conradi
Duckworth, £20, pp. 352, ISBN 0715633732
In February 1937 Ernst ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengl, Hitler’s public relations chief before Goebbels, was the victim of a particularly cruel and elaborate practical joke that later turned out to be his salvation. Having been overheard criticising the fighting spirit of the German legions in Spain during the civil war, he was set up by Goebbels and the Führer in a convoluted but terrifying spoof, one that he continued until his death in 1975 wrongly to believe was not a practical joke at all but really an assassination attempt.
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