UNKNOWN HITLER

"Where did Hitler's extraordinary hold over Germany come from? Ernst ('Putzi') Hanfstaengl became one of Hitler's early close collaborators (suing an American newspaper that alleged he was a lover). His startling portrait of the young Nazi party - he was friends with Hitler and Roosevelt, as well as T.S. Eliot, Picasso and Oswald Spengler - starts in Bavaria where Himmler's father was his schoolmaster. Educated at Harvard University, whose cheerleading marches were to inspire 'Sieg Heil', Hanfstaengl befriended the young Franklin Roosevelt. Upon his return to poverty-stricken Bavaria, he fell…