for usa today? >> i supervised the reporters had covered the white house and the pentagon money and politics in healthcare. >> i think that's mixing both that relationship to the extent that it was very strong and now people are much more skeptical in large part because of him and the act of subsequent presidents and that's maybe the relationship is much more adversarial than it used to be because we used to be skeptical of what the white house does.

>> the author of nixon's gamble help residents own secret government destroyed the administration. >> appreciate it. welcome to the manhattan public library thank you for joining us this evening tonight's program is the talk based on the author's recent book 1932 the rise of hitler and fdr, to tales of politics, they

trailed and unlikely destiny. in 1932, two depression battered nations confronted their destiny going to the polls to choose new leaders. america's presidential choices were aristocratic franklin roosevelt or tarnished wonder boy herbert hoover. they suffered two rounds of the staggered elections and presidential contests doddering reactionary poll against rising radical hatemonger adolf hitler. as unstoppable politics and economic forces advanced upon the weak and disoriented societies, a merciless worldwide great depression brought

opportunity for a transformation perhaps hopeful and perhaps badly throughout the new deal and hitler's third reich. the destiny of the rolled as it did reviewing history may reveal whether the outcomes of the two movements were inevitable. before we have tonight's program i have the usual request, please silence your cell phones, pagers and any other devices that might interrupt the program. second, please do not take any pictures or make any recordings this evening unless you have received prayer permission from the new york public library administration and we thank you for your courtesy and consideration in that. of. tonight's program is being

filmed by c-span so would you please hold your questions until the end of the presentation? the speaker tonight is david author of several books including 1920 the year of six presidents, the lifetimes of the 19 world series. lbj versus jfk versus nixon. they forged three presidencies. he has appeared on good morning america, the morning show, voice of america, the history channel coming espn, npr and c-span.

would you please welcome tonight's speaker david. [applause] >> thank you all for coming tonight. i'm glad to see such a nice crowd. always have two excuses why a crowd doesn't show up. either the weather is too nice or it's too bad so it must have been in the middle to find your way here tonight. last month i was up in hyde park at the fdr presidential library and i had discovered when i got there i discovered my notes and left them on the kitchen counter at home and after i spoke, they said don't ever bring your notes again or maybe they said don't ever come again. i am not sure. i'm still sorting that one out

in any case, but in any case, i've gone completely no place and just sort of winged it and it's far more exciting for myself and as jackie mason might say in regards to i don't know about you come its going to be exciting for you but for me it's so invigorating. this is why i was asked down stairs even before the program started by a lady in the elevator hell how did you come to write this book and as it was indicated before, i'd written three previous books on presidential history into the 1920s. so please been on this path before and so you keep on it but you have to sort of come up with a twist at some point and we have these juxtapositions of jfk and presidents involved the president involved in the 1920s election in one way or

another and here we have this juxtaposition of historic figures on a world scale in 1932 when franklin d-delta roosevelt and adolf hitler run presidential election campaigns and then they take power in 1933 and of course they die. they die within a couple of weeks of each other in early 1945 and then there's this thing that unites them called world war ii. so, we have a certain synergy going on. and we take a look at the parallels and the subtitle of the book has some meaning. i think a lot of subtitles now are like this. if changed everything forever but here we deal with three things, politics, betrayal and unlikely destiny and we will deal with unlikely destiny first

here tonight. and hitler is unlikely by any standards at all aside from public policy, which we would certainly not want to see implemented in any way, shape or form, but she's essentially a high school dropout and is then he goes and essentially is living in a homeless shelter and at one point he really is homeless on the streets indiana as abb units words and artist and ends world war i and in the mental ward a military hospital and exhibits a little, there's totally a million german casualties in world war i and he always shoots through the top rank of corporal.

so where is the leadership potential at that point and then he leaves. it's a disaster. he is accused of personal cowardice. he could have been shot for treason, executed or at least deported back to his native austria. he is not even a german citizen until 1932 the year of those elections. he's not even able to vote for whoever is running in germany. and yet there he is. so, he is pretty unlikely and franklin roosevelt is unlikely, too. yes, she has all the advantages in life that adolf hitler does not have. he comes from this wonderful sort of state in stayed in the hudson valley up in hyde park, a big mansion, farmland, workers, servants, nice dogs, a home in

canada, vacations in europe so why is he unlikely, harvard educated etc., etc. and the cousin of a president theodore roosevelt but it's because people are not sure whether he has the right stuff that i'm not just talking about republicans touting franklin roosevelt. people are wondering whether he's a lightweight, whether he has the intellectual capacity or the will to be president to lead america in this time of great crisis, the great depression going on in 1932. walter lippman regards him as a fellow who with no particular publications to be presented with an amiable fellow and no great reason to be president in

a financier and philosophers of the democratic party calls him an illegal boy scout. just someone who's maybe a thurston howell the third rising to the top in 1932. and he has also you're not sure where he stands on the issues. is he the question of his political honesty and i don't mean whether he has his hands in the till because he never has to do that and he never will do that and his administration is remarkably free of that but where does he stand, where does he stand on the issues? one of the big issues of 1932 is prohibition. it's starting to read the accounts of the 1932 republican

and democratic conventions and see in the middle of this financial and world crisis and the great depression much time is devoted to prohibition and how little actually is devoted to the depression. so come it is big news van and franklin roosevelt has decidedly been calling on the issue. you're not quite sure where he stands stands and it's been said that other major democratic candidates that year he may be the driest. certainly very late to the game and enunciating a full position on the issue. he doesn't come out for the full repeal of prohibition until early this year in a speech in buffalo new york. so, you're not quite sure where he stands on that. also, here we are in new york city and we see in the current times a mayor and governor of

the same party not necessarily getting along. we have seen it before with john lindsay and nelson rockefeller things come to a clash. and things come to a clash with franklin roosevelt in dealing with the great democratic machine room in new york city, manhattan manhattan, and certainly crooked as could be. franklin roosevelt starts his career as an anti-reformer in the united states senate in 1914 he runs from the united states senate and puts up an opponent and franklin roosevelt gets his head handed to him. and after that, he realizes don't fight the hall let alone the city hall, and he backs away from any direct confrontations with them. but in the late 20s, early

30s, there are really big and destinations one after another to the judges, the police, the officials and then it is the mayor james j. walker coming and what is franklin roosevelt going to do about its? the socialist leader, people like that say do something, crackdown coming and roosevelt who knows you're going to control the democratic national convention does as little as he can about ten in the end only does it when he absolutes but he has two. he can't be too favorable to them because people in the rest of the country has to dance. he'd been a member of the wilson administration and undersecretary of the navy in world war i.

franklin roosevelt did until january, 1932 a. gentleman named william randolph gets on the radio in los angeles and blasts everybody, just about everybody. hoover, roosevelt, al smith, one guy after another with national power, politics, and franklin roosevelt's chief political adviser says franklin, what are we going to do about this guy and what he does is he gives a major policy address at a very prestigious venue, the albany county range of the state in which he basically says 1920. it cannot be a major issue in the campaign.

so they wonder what they can count on in terms of all these issues and as to what he can do to bring forward a plan in dealing with dealing with the depression. back to germany and america is going to have a presidential election every four years. every seven years that is the constitution and 1932 it's coming due again. the president of president of germany as a fellow named paul hindenburg. he'd been a hero of the german army and eastern front in world war i. with the suppliers of ultranationalists.

he is the president of germany in 1929 there is a new plan for the reparations in germany. so they are gaining steam. in 1928 franklin roosevelt had been elected governor in the state of new york with a sports of governor al smith. he has to get on the horn and war and then you better count correctly with the state police is going to come after you and it's that close.

and in 1928 the germans vote for the delegates and adolf hitler when 12 of them. even more than the very popular al smith. they have chosen a nominee for 1932. in germany 1930 day had about elections and adolf hitler is not seized rise from 12 delegates to 107.

back in 1932 germany, the nationalists no longer like hindenburg. he's the glue holding the republic together and even though he doesn't like republics where democracy and the people that oppose him in 1925 cut a socialist scum of the social democrats and the catholic parties who were sort of a center left party, they support him. they do to would stop hitler and the not seized. as a four-man race essentially.

the fact that he's received a major appointment from a german state. there are the communists and those nationalists again and the nazis think they are great to do pretty well. he gives instructions to his men don't get too drunk on election day celebrating. we have work to do the next morning but in fact it isn't close at all. they missed by an eyelash and whether they are going to succeed, or the other parties

about ready to get out and hitler immediately announces i'm running again and i am taking this to the german people. and those that are observers of all of this think fine because he is going to get crushed even worse in the runoff and that will show him. but he's determined to run a new sort of campaign. it's been said that the not seized were a combination of the medieval and the super modern and in this case it for determined he's going to be the super modern. he has two or three weeks to run the campaign and he can't run it -- he could call the crowds and the rallies you have all seen the news reels. but how many can he do in a short period of time? lost too many. he's the great radio orator.

they were still smart enough to keep the not seized off the air and when they do do put the not seized on the air the first two to go on are two of the henchmen do not hitler. so he has to do it in a different way and he does it in a different way and it's called hitler over germany. he's going to fly to all the campaign stops. now we say okay. back then that is seven years after lindbergh and it really excites the german people. hitler has come a lot closer

than anyone thought he was going to come and he has done it by taking votes from both the extreme nationalists and from the communists and people say are we going to ever be able to stop this tide at the ballot box and it's getting worse by the month. in america, franklin delano roosevelt is blessed by some pretty weak opposition in the democratic party to be the nominee against herbert hoover and there's an old saying in politics you can't beat somebody with nobody and back in 1932, these guys are somebodies that are nobody's to us today. they want the power and

positions to watch out for them and the game players and the fellows that are taking a chance on the run they are not going to do that well. franklin roosevelt -- we know that hitler wants power and franklin roosevelt once power, too and he's got an organization with jim farley and eleanor roosevelt and he's got a working semblance of the modern campaign. the rest of them like governor albert ritchie in maryland, very repealed prohibition, limited government, traditional democrat, handsome fellow. but he talks to the supporter and says i could get better known if i gave more speeches i guess that i don't have any more ideas. so he is limited. there is a guy named alfalfa

very and oklahoma. he's pretty much a whack job. he's about to get into border wars in texas and besides who can take a guy named alfalfa bill seriously for president coming into the governor in ohio, people like that. and william randolph hearst is giving that speech out in california when he is trashing everyone he says that there is one who is a real american and his name is john garner and he is the speaker of the house and he had never given any thought in his life to running for president and says fine i will give it a tumble so he enters the race. and another guy entering the race is our old friend elford and annual smith. he got clobbered by hoover in 1928 and said don't worry about

being governor because again the thought that roosevelt would be a lightweight and smith could be the power behind the throne behind the wheelchair running the state of new york. frank, you be the governor and when you want to go to the warm springs and get healthy, we will run the state, the lieutenant governor in your face and i will help out just on the street from the mansion. anytime you need advice i'd be there to give it. franklin doesn't want it, he wants to be his own man and that room is given a playhouse with moving back to the new york state city to build the empire state building. and before that happens there are two people he really wants roosevelts to keep on. one is named g-golf moscowitz, a belle moskowitz, a very pioneering figure in having a woman at the level of power in

politics. she was the secretary chief of staff to smith and smith really wants roosevelts to keep her on and franklin roosevelt does not want a smith person as his number two person. smith also wants his secretary of state to stay under franklin roosevelt and franklin roosevelt wants no part of this person. he hates this person and this persons name is robert moses. okay. eventually he feels betrayed by franklin roosevelt. it bubbles up to early 1932 where he is running against roosevelt and roosevelt gets off to a real good start. he's winning the primaries and the engines early on in the year. he wins a couple of primaries of northern new england and is

feeling pretty good about himself and people warned him don't run in massachusetts because massachusetts is just full of irish catholic democrats and they love al smith. but they don't love you get. actually roosevelt has tremendous problems in the northeast with democrats at this point. but he ignores that and he gets his head handed to him and he gets crushed and the massachusetts primary and then he loses in the state conventions in connecticut and new jersey and underperforms in pennsylvania and john gardner takes the vote in texas and the convention and then the last primary comes up as it always does in california and people put out a flyer and it says if you are driving for garner. if you are right but for smith.

if you do not know where you stand a vote for franklin roosevelt. evidently people knew where they stood and franklin roosevelt finished second and john garner gets all of them from california. roosevelt however still has the majority of delegates at the convention in los angeles so why is he in trouble clicks because the democrats have a couple of rules one of which is the two thirds rule which is to keep this house happy for most of the history of democratic party and he's pretty well short of that one ballot and there is a thing there's a thing called the unit rule say the delegates from mississippi and roosevelt has five of them and the other people want to do something else but he gets all of them but one of two of the peeps which then all of a sudden you have lost nine and the same thing could have been in arkansas and other states and then the wheels start

falling off and jim farley is begging the california people to change or you're going to end up with somebody you really don't like and somebody else is begging and his name is joe kennedy and he's on with a fellow millionaire fellow democrat, fellow film mogul or fellow ministers in the film industry just like william randolph hearst, said so they have a lot in common and he is saying no, you've got to give it to roosevelt. i know you don't like roosevelt but you have to give it to him otherwise it will go to a real dark horse named newton baker who was the secretary under woodrow wilson and he dislikes a lot of people.

we can't throw with two albert ritchie? you can get it to garner for vice president, you can name both paths of the ticket. what power you will have and he says okay fine. he gets the nomination and there is another custom back then people do not have now which is you are not tendered to notice the nomination immediately. several weeks later some big shots from the party comes up to your hometown in hyde park new york or northampton massachusetts if you're calvin coolidge or ohio or warren harding and say surprise you won the nomination couple of weeks ago and then the nominee gives a speech. franklin roosevelt isn't going to wait for that. and what does he do he gets to

the airplane and breaks tradition, flies from albany to chicago where the national convention was and again this is a big deal. it's a big deal because for one thing one of his sons get sick on the plane and it takes seven hours to get from albany to chicago with two stops from buffalo and this excites people and franklin roosevelt says we are going to have a new deal in america. so he is off and running. in america and germany has a lot of elections in 1932. they are just getting started because they have to have the elections again. the not cease in july if that

year moved from 100 senate seats to 230. they are now the biggest party. and it's the president of the speaker of the house. there is a phrase i love from a french anarchists observer sitting in us but not cease the power and he called him have clown, half executioner and he has that right. so the not cease our moving up. and where is this going to to end? okay so it is a parliamentary democracy. and i'm not cease or the biggest party. so, why not make hitler chancellor? the answer is number one, he's hitler and even the germans in 1932 are more than a bit weary of that and the people at the

top of the government are very weary of that also germany has been operating less and less like a representative republic for the last year or so. we complain in america of the two-party system and there's a lot of reasons to complain about that. no republican is what -- happy with what happens in the democratic party but we worked together and form these coalitions and we get things done. in germany everybody hates everybody and nobody can get along with anyone. in july 1932, 13 parties when the seeds. 51 parties get the votes and none of the parties can get along with each other.

the socialists to the the communists, communists hate everyone, the nationalists had the not cease the elements of the catholics hate other elements of the catholics, not these are not forming coalitions with anyone, the middle-class parties largely evaporated since the great depression so you cannot really form a parliamentary majority anymore. nobody will. you can't do the math. so, how are things getting done? more than that but he what people do is there are some seats -- the constitution of the republic says you can do two things. article 48 says the president can issue orders that are like decrees that are kind of like executive orders so he can do

that. they can be overwritten but there is an article 25 which says the president can call for new elections at any time he wants to. no reason whatever he wants to do so it's like you want to overturn my executive order? they are not lucky they stay frozen in place so essentially you have a presidential dictatorship going on and they have one chancellor after another. back to america. one thing that will help me let down his trouble in the streets. you get some right it's going on against the demonstrations and unemployment then you get people

protesting and then you get the bonus march you get tens of thousands of people coming into washington and the congress doesn't want to pass it. they go home and a journey into the bonus says we might stay until 1945. it's sort of like a really big occupied wall street because if you were downtown when that was going on it was very small but we are talking maybe 20,000 people not leaving washington and this is something that people were used to. they were about to be torn down to be built coming to public new public office buildings were going to create jobs and they

won't leave. two of them are shot and that is when hoover calls macarthur and george patton and to army comes down pennsylvania avenue during rush hour with gas masks on and bayonets and tanks rolling down the street. the first couple of days the press isn't bad for hoover but then the object of the people are of served the country and the veterans being pro out of the plant really comes in and hoover is basically in at that point this is nothing compared to what is going on in the streets of germany where the brownshirts are battling for police and the the police and the socialist private armies and the nationalists have their own paramilitary groups and the violence picks up, picks up and

people are getting scared of it. they are particularly violent incidences. a polish communist minor is home one day and they invaded his calm, determined to kill him and beat him and to into this hole in front of his own mother. they are convicted of murder but hitler says i will not turn my back on these fighters for freedom. had a lot of germans say low. maybe he's not the one to bring us together. maybe there's something wrong with him and in november 1932 debuts 2 million votes and they are stupidest party that finally

there is the ryan is going down and as the saying goes later on maybe hitler has missed the bus. franklin roosevelt gets elected in america and it's pretty easy against herbert hoover in germany that betrayal thing is going on where there's a fellow named kurt who made and broke one chancellor after another and he becomes chancellor. he prefers dealing in the shadows but one of the guys he dumped became friends with paul and he has an idea he's going to get his reef --.

it's pretty risky stuff but he says this isn't that risky because remember who is issuing all of those creeds? who is dissolving and who has really got the power fax not the chancellor. notice i haven't changed the name until this point. so you can make it through the chancellor and he would still answer. we create a new office which would go to who? he would have the ear and also the not cease what only get two of the eight cabinet votes so what could go wrong x. as he

said we have hired hitler and he is working for us. we know the end of that story. dictatorship is also in the hare in america be needed or not also working for macarthur is a young officer named dwight eisenhower. not exactly a five-year plan or extremist. he's a very middle-of-the-road kind of guy. people call me a dictator because that's what i like his country. there is a film which franklin roosevelt punches up the script for and shows what is noteworthy about it they talk about the president of the united states becoming a dictator is in c-charlie and another studio puts out a film called mussolini speaks narrated by lowell thomas

which is essentially an infomercial maximillian dollars. you try making money out of the film in 1932, 33. not easy to get people like wickman and smith is violently opposed to franklin roosevelt are even saying you've got to take charge of this depression and rule. to his credit, franklin roosevelt did not do that. he's different than adolf hitler and it is a far different country than germany. during the campaign the american journalist named dorothy thompson planned to the hotel in berlin to interview and was expecting a pretty wicked guy that came as a -- came away and

wrote you will never be chancellor of germany, no. but after he takes power, she sees one of those big parades with everyone coming through the arch with her their torchlight split into their arms out and search lights piercing the sky and the drums beating and she says wow post war germany has postwar germany has ended. do because. prewar germany has begun and so had prewar america and that's how i ended my book. thank you all for listening. [applause] >> as i have to cover a lot of things that a lot of countries in in a lot of continents, i've left out some things so if you have any questions let me know and the gentleman from c-span will see and use the microphone and give a shout.

didn't mussolini used the same term brownshirts have hitler used to use? did he use the same term as hitler did and the answer is no it's blackshirts and also there's a lot going on at that point in history. there is a movement going on in america and the bonus these bonus marchers actually adopt sort of a -- the fascists in spain. >> the point about marion davis, did he have an affair like william jean harlow?

>> joseph p. kennedy has gloria swanson at the time. question over there. we are going to move the questions around. you mentioned gabriel in the white house and woodrow wilson giving workers this is how i want this done and some people took it as a dictatorial. in an answer to that -- also a certain amount in the way they defeat the others but i want to know how popular was that and

what effect did it have if any? >> the question is how popular it was and -- that goes beyond the scope of my book it's called the president vanishes. over the white house gabriel was quite popular and there was also a film historian has spoken that there was a genre of fascist films at the time which were really vigilante. think of something even more death wish them death wish where it wasn't someone on the subway that it would be like prosecutors lining people up against the wall and if that because some over-the-top scenes that want to maintain position

that will look in the driveway at the end of the white house and machine gun. just some really crazy stuff. but yes, next question. >> what if any did defeat psychologically how much of an effect did that have on the success leader? >> how big of an effect did germany's defeat in world war i have on hitler? absolutely immense. hitler ends the war in that mental thing wing of the hospital north of berlin and it

appears he was blinded in a poison gas attack and it appears from when the onset comes in where he was treated and he was treated by the press largely psychosomatic and he was advertised while he was being treated because the fellow who knows he's got to reach him to get him seeing again and he says look into my eyes germany is defeated but can rise again with a great leader and you could be that leader but you have to get your eyesight back. you have to get your eyesight back and this is an actual book written about this and the thing is hitler has no leadership

skills. no one pays any attention to him until after the point when he goes down to munich and everyone pays attention to him. but before that, no one does and some high-ranking guys that served in the party later on in the bureaucracy when they are asked later was he a leader during the war and they would just laugh because it is like a light switch is on with him and there is no other explanation of how he goes from zero to 60 in one second in the point in history and of course it affects the entire german nation and just what's everybody out and when the great depression and everything else its critical mass. yes ma'am.

>> yes, but the hollow cost was hitler's -- problem with jews? besides there are rumors that his grandmother or great-grandmother or something was part jewish or something. the question is where does all the anti-semitism come from and hitler and the questions of whether hitler has julius and chester e. -- jewish ancestry. it's hard to place where exactly the anti-semitism starts. not many people who knew him or early on or are talking and the results are contradictory. did it start in his hometown or vienna or does it start when

he's reading anti-semitic publications? he talks about, if you can believe this, he talks about it seems to come out from his antipathy towards the social democrats. he says there is a jewish name, there is a jewish name. but it's something that is in the air in austria. cnn also has a very high jewish population, probably more than maybe not in russia but it's like seven or eight or 9% 30 hi then in berlin it's 1%. it's not very high so that's probably part of it. his ancestry, hitler's personal lawyer who later became the governor general of occupied

poland revealed were claimed that hitler had ordered an investigation into his ancestry and they have found some evidence of that. the question isn't whether hitler was jewish or not, it's it's the question did he think he was jewish and is this a question of expunging something that was a stain on his background. in any case, there's both hitler and roosevelt have very tangled ancestries. there's a lot of people, a lot of relatives marrying relatives, so hitler screams that his blood relatives about this time people may never know where i came from and exactly what he means by that we can only guess that in terms of disk on hitler comes from a much older father, much

younger brother. he has an older stepbrother like roosevelt or half brother, excuse me, and hitler has an affair leader on, perhaps people think of his half niece and she commits suicide in like 1929 and franklin roosevelt marries a relative of his because threonine of eleanor roosevelt 30 name of eleanor roosevelt is anna roosevelt so they -- and she's given away by her uncle theodore roosevelt. any other questions? huge. >> just want to ask what made hitler got into eugenics? how did he get that business? >> the question is what made hitler get into eugenics. when you get into racial purity,

it's a natural thing in terms of pure eugenics he was much more into this racial breeding sort of thing. but beyond that it is all part and parcel. he's a foreigner in sort of the odd man out that worships the german mess of the austrian german people and he feels that the austrian germans are being let down by their leadership even though his father has a job with the government with the monarchy and his father is a german nationalist and hitler sees the german people of the entire sort of being polluted by jews and there is probably a

greater chance that hitler is part czech then he is jewish simply because of the area that he lives. it's a border area and if you get into these areas of eastern europe, you know, everybody is -- that's why woodrow wilson couldn't have self-determination of people. you can't draw these borders carefully. and i suspect that if you were to look far enough you probably would find some czech blood. he certainly doesn't look. he isn't blond, he may be blue-eyed, but he doesn't look like a reinhard or something like that >> i read a fair bit about how the depression started up here and it really did start it seems

to me things began to really fall apart economically in 1930 dot long after the crash. how did it happen in germany. did it get worse than it was here? >> the question is how did it start in germany and it doesn't get worse. it starts out worse. it starts out worse because germany has of course had to defeat, they had the war occupied by france, hyperinflation in the middle of the decade but 1929 nine the start of 3 million unemployed, so they start out with crummy circumstances independent goes to six or 7 million unemployed in 1932, 33. the communists -- the nazis at a certain stability in terms of membership, they hold their people. once you become a not see pretty much stay with the party.

and if they hold their membership. there's a big churning with the communists but the constant is almost all their members are unemployed so there's a big economic problem there. i'm going to cut things off now because of c-span trying to hold the program within an hour for folks there. we don't want to wear out our welcome so thank you very much. [applause] now that we've cut it, if you want more questions i will take them. okay. let's get some new people. you. >> what was it that enabled him to rise from chancellor under the authority of president within a year?

>> what happens is well, number one and you used the word and able and there is, first off the fire where somebody, probably do not cease fire. burned it down blame donnie dutch communist which gives the nod sees the excuse to throw the communists out and then give them pretty much were actually give them a working majority because they've got the nationalist and the catholics onboard now so they finally got a majority. then they passed the enabling act which basically says everything that we do is legal. ..

>> okay. and hitler gets rid of some of those people in 1934. he also feels strasser in the speechwriter.

but in the meantime fun hindenburg took an instant disliking the hitler wash that take this austrian bohemian seriously. his like his policy, media for people. and also the 1st time they meet it is in our meeting. hitler talked for 45 minutes and just takes them off. he grows on hindenburg and hindenburg dies hindenburg dies, the constitutions of the office of the presidency balls.

at one point the nazis were going to change that is lines they didn't get a little adapter politics. so hitler has both offices and in the past another law that says okay. and by that time the army is pledging personal allegiance to him, which it never occurred under the german army. so, yeah. >> yes. thank you so much. just a just a brief question. part of the military? >> no. i promise this, mr. c-span guy, promise that fellow next.fá

right there.there. but i'm going to answer that question now. a minor sort of aristocrat. he was the military attaché before and during world war i. one of the things, it is a very interesting thing called love things appear. if you ever heard of the blackcomb explosion, black tom mylan and it blows sky high with the addition, and it just shows the statue of liberty, rex part of that. they try to blow up the canal in canada and

eventually he is expelled from the united states of america. he was not well thought of in germany. he was a member of the catholics, but they would not let him even run the reichstag. they let him run for some provincial. i mean,, it is like obama skipped senator and became president. he caps on early -- skips utterly. he was not a military guy. he was a very minor political guy with a lightweight reputation. it is amazing that he survived. there is an arrest warrant out in canada for him when he is made chancellor of germany. and in america they said a state department say this is

incredible. he gives a speech when hitler starting to accumulate power and fun pop and is still vice chancellor he gives a speech of marburg really chairing the nazis a new one. i mean, really, really telling it like it is, like this is a dangerous group of people. what have we done. and made ambassador to austria, turkey, and charted nuremberg and was acquitted. so he is just one lucky son of a gun.

yes, sir. >> very nice presentation. we know now, but at that time cherished by the people and what kind of inference some updating generation. secondly, when he was put in office and develop the industry for the basic reason to launch a war. >> thank you. >> it is always a puzzle to

me. when you spend a year and a half with hitler, like i did , and roosevelt, you start to puzzle these questions and questions you did not even think about before. one of them was okay 1st off hot or explain hitler and the question which next in your me and why -- he is a man who has risen from the ranks. he is serious. it is a little throwaway line at the beginning. where roosevelt wants it so bad. so the guys who i like, okay, jeb bush is standing and stays now.

does thisdoes this guy wanted? okay. the people asked that question they want to guy, i ran for office once. people want you to knock on their doors. they want to know if you want it or not. and where there going for you afterwards, giving a talk. is not a big stadium talking about how all these different were running germany. but so people are sick of this gridlock.

sometimes gridlock is better than headlock. so i don't think people think about it a lot, how class written and divided the society was. it's one of the few countries divided religiously and western europe. catholics never you have that divide all the prussian versus bavarian versus these guys commerce that guys. the ability places everybody else. you might get six different

gradations of workmen. people would have to bow in certain ways to certain persons and people were sick of that and wanted some sort of unifying thing which would destroy all these class distinctions, but they did not want to destroy them in a marxist way, at least the nazis. i mean, communists. socialists. but this was there way to bring people together in the race these differences but not in a marxist way. also, you get the -- you get a lot of people who don't like democracy. you have the majority of the people at the end of 1932 voting not just for a dictatorship, they are

voting for aa totalitarian. the combined of the communists and nazis is a majority from majority of the people in a democracy are voting to end the democracy. and then you add in the nationalist. you get even more people. you probably have got 60% of the people who want nothing to do with this republic. is the guy who is going to end it. it was said the brownshirts were like a stake, but on the inside the room the inside. anyone else? okay. >> hello. when the nazis aware of

movement here in the united states? >> for the nazis aware of the clan movement? i think to some extent, but i mean the clan sort of comes and goes pretty quick. by 1925. >> what? >> it comes and goes, but it never comes and goes. >> it peaks within about five years and is refounded in 1915. by 1920 it is still fairly small pretty much washed up. >> the marcher new york city now. >> the the mayor allow the

clan the march? there is. they do march in new york city in the 1920s. and cleans and i 20s and it is a minor election issue mayor walker. mayor highland, highland boulevard staten island, he was a her sky. first put him in his mayor. hearst had threeof three papers in new york city, the journal of the american and. [inaudible] that they are aware also of henry ford. henry ford had written the protocol. he had not written, but he put together or someone for

him murder series of articles, a very long series of articles about shoes, and this was published in like a paperback called the international jew. and it sold a lot and eventually he was sued, ford was sued for libel by jewish individuals and eventually shut down. but ford would have been more, i think, of interest to the nazis and the clan. and the clan have -- compared to what the nazis got going to clan was kind of small potatoes. >> well, -- >> i wonder, you make reference about parallels between this period, today

in the us and globally. i tried this the acquisition >> well, what is the theme? i tried to stay clear of themes because when you do that you are going to try and fit all your facts in the reinforcing that. i rather just let things flow the way that they do. the people see the parallels are there are parallels. and be careful, you may like the guy who is doing the executive orders today. maybe somebody else tomorrow or maybe you won't like either. that is possibility.

>> it really plays it straight. there was one review and the sky, the author was really the tank: guy. >> this guy changed parties and i was a kid and those accused of being in the tank. i also think sometimes it can be a litmus test. if you read what i am writing they will say, that supports what i'm thinking.

on the other side of the spectrum. i tried to the so whoever gets, what is wrong, fdr shifty. i try to call them as i see them. one person i found some of this was interesting. but for the presidential your books. somebody shows up, 40 years.

who is that person? eleanor married to fdr. in 48 is not while. enter two sons really don't like it. he tells one of them off. in 1960 she's not too crazy about jack kennedy. kennedy will grow on her. add line madly. in 1920 she comes off fairly well. she was acting very strangely. then the betrayal part, she

still feels betrayed. and of course it before she comes from a childhood her mother was beautiful. the beauty was sort of approach to eleanor. and her father, absentee, gigantic, he dies falling out of the window. and he does she love? the father. then she has sent away to europe.

first she is with her parents and her grandmother. you can, can you? she comes a catches up quickly. she is hurt by that is elected governor coincidental. that she says what do i care that would us.

people get misquoted. but if she did strip the same damn thing. and her actions in 1932 are not part of the campaign. missing a very key points. and even threatening the runoff. so at that point i am almost sympathetic in terms of their -- her attitude. she does not want to ride down on the train with everyone watching the inauguration. she wants to write separately in a car. and finally franklin goes no , you are runningwriting on the train. you know, this is the inauguration. so she goes off to mourn just before the inauguration

she used to set at rock creek park because that is where she went when she found out. mercer rutherford. very damaged goods shows up to vote on election day. goes back to teach school franklin is worried. election day. franklin votes in the morning with his secretary which is another story, and they are waiting and waiting

back on the were newspapers of people read you can always see the picture in the afternoon edition of the candidates showing up early in the morning so that the picture would be in the afternoon paper. so they always vote early. they have to wait until she gets back at noon. and then when they get back to new york city she goes off to see her friends in greenwich village. i. i mean,, this is not what i would call supportive. she must've been an incredibly angry person. some people say i never saw them alone. they would always have a conversation with her. a lot of these political marriages are political partnerships.

save the harding's. after a while i'm sure they had some sort. >> i heard that hitler did not get the majority of the popular vote. the liberal vote was divided up. >> zero, yeah. >> says hitler get the majority of the vote or is the vote split up. and he is getting the great bulk of the extreme right wing. there are these nationalists who should get along well with hitler, and the way they do in 1929 when there is this new preparation program and the nationalist

turn on hindenburg, big referendum in their kind of stodgy old type monarchy guys and need muscle on the street. so they recruit the nazis. i do not reproach until early 33. there is really bad blood. hitler does get a hell of a lot more than they do. but when you have 30 --@trump. what is trump getting? 30 percent? well, why, you have 14 other guys, 30 percent is a tremendous vote. it is terrible. 37 percent when you have got literally 50 other parties is mind-boggling.

but he does not get -- you know, he does not get the majority. the fact that they have to bring it tells you. maybe the blue shirt. >> that he ever join thehtñ nazi party? >> i don't think you did. there were guys high up and came from -- the respectable guys who signed on. forrest greeley shock because his middle name comes from the fact that he had some american background he was the financial wizard. there was a question somewhere around here have

how have i got things going and they come out of the depression very quickly and shocked is a guy who put this together for hitler economically. eventually he ends up in 1944 and a concentration camp. he never joins the nazi party. fun pop and is really to catholic to be a full-fledged nazi, but he is aa game player and a manipulator in his own right he is more of an old line come the conservative than the nazis. >> what were they charged with? >> i'm not sure. four counts. i don't know if they were

charged with waging aggressive war, crimes against humanity and a couple others. waging an aggressive war might have been, you know, the catchall for all of them and on pop and certainly could have been charged with that because except there was not work. he was in charge with taking over austria, ambassador to austria not pleased to have the nazis margin. hitler sent him to austria because he was the probing catholic dying. you could send in austria and they would not get too nervous. probably something like that >> you want to throw me out?

just let it go? five minutes. no. no. the lady them back. >> the gentleman raise the question. very popular. he would not -- you could not kill so many intellectuals. i find a lot of -- they are not -- not many of them have the spirit of service and the integrity. they utilize the kind of psychopaths right where you play emotional games.

they are good talkers but are not accountable for what they say are promised. a few decades, 20 or 30 years killing by. >> and one. >> and one thing i had not really touched on in the talk is the power propaganda which could work for any movement or spectrum of thought and certainly works for hitler. they give a lot of thought early on. he designs the uniforms, the standard, the flag, and really thinks about it a lot. and one of his smarter all

the most evil disciples is goebbels. so they leave nothing to chance in that regard. until everything goes to hell for everybody it worked pretty well. thank you all for your interest. i have some books there. it is normally 35. if you're interested, we can let them go for 30 and i am happy to autograph them. [inaudible conversations]

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