Hitler's Pianist, Roosevelt's Secret

The largely untold saga of Ernst "Putzi" Hanfstaengl is one of the most fascinating and unlikely stories that took place before and during World War II.

How is it possible that a Harvard graduate, friend to both Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt, became one of Hitler's closest friends—only later to assist Franklin Roosevelt and the Allies as a secret adviser?

Putzi helped Hitler rise to power and became his foreign press chief once the Nazis took power in 1933. He later fled Germany and interned in England as an enemy alien once war broke out in September 1939. He was eventually shipped off to an internment camp in Canada, where he was able to smuggle out a letter to President Roosevelt, offering his help to the Allies. Roosevelt accepted his offer and brought Putzi secretly to the DC area. And in an astonishing twist of fate, Roosevelt enlisted Putzi's only son, American-born Egon, by then a US Army sergeant, to act as Putzi's guard and secretary.

Hanfstaengl's story is one of intrigue, vanity, ethical and moral failure, and, in the end, redemption—circumscribed by two of the most important figures in modern history.