Friday, Sept. 13, 1963 — THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS -- 46
f
Quentin Reynolds Wdrns of Dangers of
Neo-Nazi Deification of Hitler's Name;
Autobiography Filled with Historic Facts
"By Quentin Reynolds" is a
biographical work and there-
fore did not need anything
other than a byline. This re-
vealing McGraw-Hill Book Co.'s
publication is packed full of
incidents about the eminent
is experiences
author's life,
that developed in the course of
his reportorial career, his ac-
counts of world shaking events
and of the Nazi era.
He wrote the story at the
suggestion of Dorothy Parker
and there are numerous human
interest angles relating to the
development of the self-study.
Reynolds quotes Heywood
Broun, one of his devote d
friends who appears in this life
QUENTIN REYNOLDS
story several times, who said:
"In the long run, history is
compounded of small things
which may seem trivial at the
time." It is applicable to "By
Quentin Reynolds."
For obvious reasons, in offer-
ing a review for Jewish readers,
it may be proper to begin
the Reynolds story with his
epilogue, in which he declares:
"I have made no judgments in
this book except to condemn
Adolf Hit 1 e r for making a
shambles out of part of the
Twentieth Century."
Reynolds makes a comment
here that deserves special
attention, in view of the fear
over the rising neo-Nazism
and because there are so
many who hold the view that
Hitler, rated a "genius," may
be deified by generations to
come.
Reynolds soon heard Goeb-
bel's harangues, his appeals to
the crowd with anti-Semitic
passion and with slogans "Die
Juden sind Schuldig !"
H. R. Knickerbocker was with
him in Germany during the
early days of Hitler's rise to
power. Knickerbocker recom-
mended that Reynolds read
"Mein Kampf" immediately,
and he did. Reynolds relates:
" 'No American I know of.
has taken the trouble to read
it seriously,' Knick said, 'but
it's all there: his plan for the
conquest of Europe.' Knick, a
red-haired Texan with an im-
pish sense of hum o r, also
pointed out that Hitler must
be one of the world's wealth-
iest writers. His book, which
he had written in 1924 while
being comfortably detained in
prison, had sold more than a
million copies in Germany in
1932. 'He's a silly-looking man
with that stare and mustache
and lock of hair and out-
stretched arm.' Knick went on,
'but he doesn't look silly to the
cheering German masses, and
he writes and says what they
want to hear'."
Reynolds also relates the
following:
"Sigrid Schultz told me that
many wealthy Jews, in spite
of the increasing confiscations
of their property, still hoped
to buy their safety from the
re g i m e, and Jahn Gunther
spoke of the Nazi movement
that he saw growing in Austria.
"My feeble comment was
that I did not understand how
any German, rich or poor, if
he had a serviceable mind,
could follow so visionary and
contradictory a leader. 'You
might think of Father Charles
Coughlin,' Knick said. 'He's
giving several million Ameri-
can radio listeners the very
same scapegoats that Hitler is
presenting so effectively: the
Jews, the bankers, the Com-
munists, and the political lead-
ers he calls traitors.'
"The parallel had not oc-
curred to me, but it was
pointed up when Knick went
on to tell me that the Voel-
kischer Beobachter, the voice
of the Nazi party, p r i n t e d
Coughlin's radio talks in full
and hailed him in its editorial
columns."
Then Reynolds met "my
first Nazi official, the Har-
vard-educated piano player.
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Putzi Hafstaengel, known to
all the correspondents as
Putzi." Reynolds comments:
"You had to know Putzi to
really dislike him." Putzi
later told him there was no
Jewish problem in the Third
Reich, that there only were
a few objectionable individ-
uals.
land Rice finally made good
his threat to quit Collier's,
and Charley Colebaugh quite
honestly and amicably hired
me away from INS as his
replacement. When I took
the boat home, thanks to
what I had seen and learned
in the Third Reich, Hitler
was no longer just a story.
He was a threat."
put of Germany for settlement
in Palestine. "As I listened to
B a c k e r's stories," Reynolds
states, I wondered why Roose-
velt and Churchill were not
warning Hitler that the Allies
would eventually exact retribu-
tion for his atrocities." Backer
told him "that neither of the
Allied leaders really believed,
yet, the extent of the Nazi
bestiality."
Reynolds commenced his
life's story by recalling his par-
ents' friendly relations with
Jews in Brooklyn. He quotes
Jewish phrases to indicate the
associations of his youth from
whom he had learned them.
One of the most interesting
chapters in the book gives a
full account of his libel suit
against Westbrook Pegler who
abused and maligned him. He
was defended by Louis Nizer.
The r e p or t of that trial is
thorough and exciting. Rey-
nolds won a high momentary
verdict and Nizer emerges
anew in this story as one of
the great trial lawyers of our
time.
"By Quentin Reynolds" is a
noteworthy historic document.
It throws much light on the
major events of our time.
Scores of incidents attest to
Reynolds' exciting experiences,
as a war correspondent, in
Russia,. among the notables in
this country.
He relates an occurrence
d u r in g the war when Sam
Schulman, of Hollywood fame,
Reynolds describes an inci- was assisting a Nazi prisoner
dent when Putzi serenaded his and put a lit cigarette between
mother who was visiting him his lips. When he asked for the
prisoner's religion, so that if
he dies he should get a burial
of his church. The pilot rasped:
"I am a National Socialist,
Heil Hitler! You God damn
Jew!" Schulman told him to
take it easy, to relax, that he'd
be back later if he needed any-
thing. Reynolds then said to
him: "You're one lousy Jew,
Sammy boy," and Schulman
replied: "What the hell, the
guy is hurt, isn't he?"
Many great personalities pass
in review in the Reynolds
story, and there are accounts
of the most important events
that - transpired during his
career as a journalist.
In 1945, George Backer in-
terested R e y n olds in the
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PUTZI HAFSTAENGEL
Backer had been spiriting Jews
in Berlin, "with a foul song
in which the Third Reich's
enemies were jingled out as
Jews, Catholics and Negroes."
Reynolds writes that he had
an impulse to slug him and
throw him out. As he was
leaving, Reynolds said to him,
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"Not for some years later
did I have a chance to repay
Putzi for his malice. One day
in 1942, when I was in New
York, I received a letter
from him. Two years earlier
he had fallen in disfavor
with Goebbels, and even his
long intimacy with Hitler
was not enough to save him.
Fleeing to Spain, he had
made his way to Canada,
where he was now interned
as a prisoner of war.
-4
"His letter, which began
'My dear Quent,' suggested
that I knew influential men
in the government and sug-
gested that I prevail upon
them to get him released so
that he could come to the
United States and make him-
self useful in the American
war effort. I thought about it.
Putzi, I had known only as
a dedicated Nazi. Now ap-
parently he wanted to be a
turncoat. For some reason a
line of Goethe came to me:
'Menschlich ist est bloss zu
strafen, aber Goettlich zu
verzeihen.' (It is manlike to
punish, but Godlike to for-
give). I thought this noble
sentiment over, rejected it,
and tore Putzi's letter in
small pieces.
"Apparently he wrote a
good many more letters of
the same type and some
credulous s o u 1 eventually
went to bat for him. After
the war ended I learned that
Putzi had been sent secretly
to Washington to advise the
government on Germany. It
was a depressing thought
that he had been able to fool
high-ranking defense offi-
cials into believing that his
advice on any thing but
Liszt, 19th century paint-
ings or the wines of the
Rhineland would be worth
considering.
"As for me, in 1933, at a
time when I needed it, I got
an education from Putzi and
his colleagues.
"Late in the year Grant-
4
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