Editing Ernst Hanfstaengl (section)

===Admirer and confidant of Hitler===
[[Image:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-14080, Berlin, Hitler, Göring und Hanfstaengl.jpg|thumb|Hanfstaengl with [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] and [[Hermann Göring]] in [[Berlin]] in 1932]]
[[Image:Putzi Hanfstaengl and Diana Mitford in 1934.jpg|thumb|Hanfstaengl with [[Diana Mitford]] at a 1934 [[Nazi Party]] rally in [[Nuremberg]]]]
Hanfstaengl returned to Germany in 1922. While living in his native [[Bavaria]], he first heard [[Adolf Hitler]] speak in a [[Munich]] beer hall.<ref>The initial encounter was on 22 November 1922 at the Kindlkeller, a large L-shaped beer hall. ''Toland'', p. 128.</ref> A fellow member of the Harvard's [[Hasty Pudding club]] who worked at the [[Embassy of the United States in Berlin|U.S. Embassy]] asked Hanfstaengl to assist a military attaché sent to observe the political scene in Munich. Just before returning to Berlin, the attaché, Captain [[Truman Smith (officer)|Truman Smith]], suggested that Hanfstaengl go to a [[Nazi]] rally as a favor and report his impressions of Hitler. Hanfstaengl was so fascinated by Hitler that he soon became one of his most intimate followers, although he did not formally join the [[Nazi Party]] until 1931. "What Hitler was able to do to a crowd in 2½ hours will never be repeated in 10,000 years," Hanfstaengl said. "Because of his miraculous throat construction, he was able to create a rhapsody of hysteria. In time, he became the living unknown soldier of [[Nazi Germany|Germany]]."

Hanfstaengl introduced himself to Hitler after the speech and began a close friendship and political association that would last through the 1920s and early 1930s. After participating in the failed Munich [[Beer Hall Putsch]] in 1923, Hanfstaengl briefly fled to [[First Austrian Republic|Austria]], while the injured Hitler sought refuge in Hanfstaengl's home in [[Uffing]], outside Munich. Hanfstaengl's wife, Helene, allegedly<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hanfstaengl|first=Ernst|title=Hitler: The Memoir of a Nazi Insider that Turned Against the Fuhrer|publisher=Arcade Publishing|year=1957|location=New York, New York|pages=108|quote=My wife hurried up to the attic and found Hitler in a state of frenzy. He had pulled out his revolver with his good hand and shouted, ‘This is the end. I will never let these swine take me. I will shoot myself first.’ It so happened that I had taught my wife one of the few ju-jitsu tricks I know, for wrenching a pistol out of someone’s grasp. Hitler’s movements were awkward with his dislocated shoulder and she managed to get the thing away from him and fling it into a two-hundredweight barrel of flour we kept up in the attic to combat the recurrent shortages.}}</ref> dissuaded Hitler from committing suicide when the police came to arrest him.

For much of the 1920s, Hanfstaengl introduced Hitler to Munich high society and helped polish his image. He also helped to finance the publication of Hitler's ''[[Mein Kampf]]'', and the [[NSDAP]]'s official newspaper, the ''[[Völkischer Beobachter]]'' (People's Observer). Hitler was the godfather of Hanfstaengl's son Egon. Hanfstaengl composed both [[Sturmabteilung|Brownshirt]] and [[Hitler Youth]] marches patterned after his Harvard football songs and, he later claimed, devised the chant "[[Sieg Heil]]". Included among Hanfstaengl's friends during this period were [[Hanns Heinz Ewers]] and fellow Nazi Party worker and journalist [[Kurt Lüdecke]].

When [[Winston Churchill]] was staying at the Hotel Regina in Munich in late August 1932, Hanfstaengl introduced himself and said he could easily arrange a meeting with Hitler there since he came to the hotel every evening around five o'clock. At the time, Churchill said he had no national prejudices against Hitler and knew little of his "doctrine or record and nothing of his character."

In the course of the conversation with Hanfstaengl, Churchill asked, "Why is your chief so violent about the Jews? I can quite understand being angry with the Jews who have done wrong or who are against the country, and I understand resisting them if they try to monopolise power in any walk of life; but what is the sense of being against a man because of his birth? How can a man help how he is born?" Hanfstaengl, according to Churchill, must have relayed this to Hitler because the next day, around noon, he came to the hotel to tell Churchill that Hitler would not be coming to see him after all. In addition, Hitler may not have wanted to meet with Churchill, who was then not in power and thought to be of no importance.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/meeting-hitler-1932/|title = Meeting Hitler, 1932|date = 5 March 2015}}</ref> Churchill declined to meet with Hitler on several subsequent occasions.<ref>''[[The Second World War (book series)|The Gathering Storm]]''. By Winston S. Churchill. Chapter V. 1948</ref>

During the [[Reichstag fire]], Hanfstaengl was staying at Göring's official residence, noticed the fire, and alerted members of the Nazi Party.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://spartacus-educational.com/GERreichstagF.htm|title=The Reichstag Fire|work=[[Spartacus Educational]]|date=March 15, 2014|access-date=April 23, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423073649/https://spartacus-educational.com/GERreichstagF.htm|archive-date=April 23, 2023|url-status=live}}</ref>