Free Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power by Andrew Nagorski Page A

sociologist and historian W.E.B. Dubois.
    Observing Hitler and his movement up close, the most perceptive of these Americans helped their reluctant countrymen begin to understand the nature of Nazi Germany as it ruthlessly eliminated political opponents, instilled hatred of Jews and anyone deemed a member of an inferior race, and readied its military and its people for a war for global domination. They helped prepare Americans for the years of struggle ahead.

Andrew Nagorski , award-winning journalist, is vice president and director of public policy at the EastWest Institute, a New York–based international affairs think tank. During a long career at Newsweek, he served as the magazine’s bureau chief in Hong Kong, Moscow, Rome, Bonn, Warsaw, and Berlin. He is the author of four previous books and has written for countless publications. He lives in Pelham Manor, New York.
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BY THE SAME AUTHOR
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    Copyright © 2012 by Andrew Nagorski
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    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.

For the youngest generation,
Christina, Kaia, Maia, Charles, Sydney, Caye, and Stella,
And, as always,
For Krysia

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Afterword
    E arly in his political career, long before he became the all-powerful ruler of the Third Reich who was the target of assassination plots, Adolf Hitler narrowly escaped death. On November 9, 1923, when he and General Ludendorff led their followers in the final act of the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, they were met by a hail of machine-gun fire from the police. One of the bullets struck down Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, a close confidant of the Nazi leader; the two men had been marching arm-in-arm, and a slight difference in the trajectory of that bullet would have changed the course of history.
    That was pure chance, but what happened the next day was something else. It is impossible to know whether Hitler was really about to shoot himself