Susan Ronald, acclaimed author of Hitler's Art Thief takes readers
into the shadowy world of the aristocrats and business leaders on both
sides of the Atlantic who secretly aided Hitler and Nazi Germany.
Hitler said, "I am convinced that propaganda is an essential means to
achieve one's aims." Enlisting Europe's aristocracy, international
industrialists, and the political elite in Britain and America, Hitler
spun a treacherous tale everyone wanted to believe: he was a man of
peace. Central to his deception was an international high society Black
Widow, Princess Stephanie Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst, whom
Hitler called "his dear princess." She, and others, conspired for Hitler
at the highest levels of the British aristocracy and spread their web to
America's wealthy powerbrokers.
Hitler's aristocrats became his eyes, listening posts, and mouthpieces
in the drawing rooms, cocktail parties, and weekend retreats of Europe
and America. Among these "gentlemen spies" and "ladies of mystery" were
the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Lady Nancy Astor, Charles Lindbergh,
and two of the Mitford sisters. They were the trusted voices
disseminating his political and cultural propaganda about the "New
Germany," brushing aside the Nazis' atrocities. Distrustful of his own
Foreign Ministry, Hitler used his aristocrats to open the right doors in
Great Britain and the United States, creating a formidable fifth column
within government and financial circles.
In a tale of drama and intrigue, Hitler's Aristocrats uncovers the
battle between these influencers and those who heroically opposed them.
