Monday, Dec. 09, 1935

Sorrows of a Hanfstaengl

A copy of TIME, Sept. 10, 1934 was handed up in King's Bench division last week for the inspection of Hon. Mr. Justice Swift. After scrutinizing it with care, His Lordship ventured, "It is apparently an American publication." Subject of the trial was a libel suit against Baron Beaverbrook's London Daily Express by intuitive Adolf Hitler's magnetic friend Dr. Ernst Franz Sedgwick ("Putzy") Hanfstaengl. The gigantic Nazi Doktor is given to moments of extreme nervous excitement which he calms by striding about his office and inhaling great whiffs from a small green crystal bottle of smelling salts. From TIME the Daily Express had picked up and reprinted the fact that Putzy in one of these nervous moments exclaimed to Manhattan Lawyer William Ormonde Thompson, onetime partner of Clarence Darrow: "Damn those Oxford professors! I will send some of our swine to burn down their Oxford!" Lawyer Thompson, duly brought to London from New York last week, declared under oath in the witness box that Dr. Hanfstaengl spoke exactly as quoted. What had wrought Putzy up to speak in this fashion, Mr. Thompson testified, was a reference to the condemnation of Nazi methods by numerous Britons, including some prominent Oxonians. At this provocation not even smelling salts could prevent Putzy from flying wrathfully off the handle. In court last week Dr. Hanfstaengl, admirably composed, declared, "Such a statement as the one attributed to me could only have been made by a man of violent and vulgar temper." In an injured tone the big man continued softly, "What hurt me most was the idea that somebody would say I would burn down the finest seat of learning in the Anglo-Saxon world. It is just like saying I would burn down Goethe's or Schiller's house. ... I did not roar at Thompson, I did ask him, 'What would they say if those Communists burnt down their Oxford?' "

This wording of the question seemed to most Britons in court last week approximately as incoherent as the one on which Dr. Hanfstaengl based his suit, but the great earnestness of enormous Putzy won him some sympathy. It became possible to guess that Dr. Hanfstaengl had meant to convey to Lawyer Thompson some such thought as this: Oxford professors condemn us for what we have done to the Communists said to have burned down our Reichstag, but what would those same professors say if Communists burned down Oxford? To anyone who knows Putzy the whole matter was plainly one of insufficient smelling salts, but British Justice was obliged to grind this Nazi grist exceeding small. The eminent King's Counsel for the Daily Express, Sir Patrick Hastings, cross-examined Dr. Hanfstaengl last week with a view to adducing that his language is often intemperate. "I am suggesting to you," purred Sir Patrick, "that directly people asked you questions about Communists you were no longer the gentleman you appear now. You were a domineering autocratic and rather bad-tempered gentleman at the head of an office saying that Communists were swine and that if they did not behave themselves they would be shot." ''Not so," replied Putzy. ''Did you not also," Sir Patrick continued, "say that 'Catholic priests are swines and traitors--swines, all swines! All Catholics are swines?' " To this Dr. Hanfstaengl fervently replied: "Preposterous! . . . Such a remark would include the present Leader of Germany, Chancellor Adolf Hitler, who is also a Roman Catholic." The best Sir Patrick could do was to coax Putzy to admit that when Lady Listowel called upon him at Berlin in behalf of the German pacifist widely mentioned this year for the Nobel Peace Prize, Carl von Ossietzky, whom Nazis have clapped into a prison camp (TIME, Dec. 2), Dr. Hanfstaengl roared at Lady Listowel, "Ossietzky is a swine and a traitor!" Very earnestly last week Putzy testified, "I know Ossietzky is a traitor." "And do you think him also a swine?" asked Sir Patrick. "It is difficult. . . ." answered pensive Putzy, "It is difficult to say." In pressing Dr. Hanfstaengl's suit last week Sergeant-at-Law Alexander Martin Sullivan hotly called TIME "a publication of offensive scurrility directed against all manner of persons!" Graduating from Harvard with the Class of 1909, enormous Putzy just after the War saw his family's Manhattan art print shop, which they valued at $600,000, auctioned off by the U. S. Alien Property Custodian for $9,000. Returning embittered to the family seat near Munich, Dr. Hanfstaengl was attracted by Adolf Hitler at a time when the future Realmleader was often hounded by police. Repeatedly Hitler took refuge with the Hanfstaengls. After his rise to power, Dictator Hitler burdened Putzy with no great office the cares of which would spoil their evenings together, with Dr. Hanfstaengl at the piano and the often-exhausted Realmleader drinking in music and rest. Since much of his background is American, the Doktor functions, with great strain and effort, as the Nazi Party's spokesman to the English-speaking press. His troubles arise chiefly because journalists whom he trustfully presents to his friend Adolf so often write unflattering articles. In his way perhaps the wittiest man in the Nazi Party, where the light touch is at a premium. Dr. Hanfstaengl is famed for his spur-of-the-moment reply when asked, "If the Party sets so much store by pure German blonds how does it happen that Hitler's hair is dark?" From his full height of 6 ft. 2 in. Dr. Ernst Franz Sedgwick Hanfstaengl flashes in German repartee: "On his head, ja, it is dark--but you should see under the arms!" Saddest trial thus far to Putzy '09 was the refusal of Harvard University, when he returned to Cambridge not long ago for a reunion (see cut) to accept from Dr. Hanfstaengl $1,000 which he offered as a scholarship to send some Harvard student on a study trip to Naziland. A pleasure, comparatively, to harassed Dr. Hanfstaengl this week was abrupt settlement of his libel suit out of court, with the Daily Express paying Putzy his costs and promising to "refrain from further attacks."

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