ordered by Hermann Göring to fly to Francisco Franco’s headquar-
ters in Madrid on a mission and discovering en route that he was to
be paradropped behind Republican lines, he escaped via Switzerland
to London (later Göring unconvincingly wrote Hanfstaengl that the
incident was intended merely to prod him into reconsidering his re-
cent utterances).
With the outbreak of war, Hanfstaengl was seized and interrogated
by British officials, who concluded that his flight from Germany had
been “due to a personal feud,” not a change of political conviction.
He was shipped to a spartan internment camp in Canada, but on 30
June 1942, at President Roosevelt’s insistence, he was summoned to
a U.S. Army base outside Washington, D.C. Despite deep misgiv-
ings by the British, Roosevelt had been persuaded by John Franklin
Carter, a New Deal journalist and the head of the president’s personal
intelligence service, that Hanfstaengl could provide unique firsthand
insights into the Nazi ruling elite. Besides knowing him personally
from their Harvard days, Roosevelt favored a competitive approach
to information gathering and especially relished the human and
idiosyncratic element so often missing in conventional reports. He
acceded to the British demands that Hanfstaengl remain under tight
security and his whereabouts be kept strictly confidential, but he was
provided with comfortable living quarters, including a piano, and his
son served as one of his guards.
In the first phase of what was called the S-Project, Hanfstaengl
supplied biographical information on 400 leading Nazis, analyzed
Hitler’s speeches, and even speculated about how the Führer’s reign
might come to an end. Roosevelt showed a keen interest in Hanfs-
taengl’s 50-page intimate portrait of Hitler and circulated it among
many of his top advisors. The more pro-active phase of the S-Project
concerned psychological warfare. In addition to critiquing German
and American propaganda efforts, Hanfstaengl was asked to prepare
scripts for possible broadcasts to Germany, as the American presi-
dent believed that the German people might topple the Hitler regime
from within. As German victory became increasingly less probable,
Roosevelt’s attitude hardened, revealing no distinction between the
Nazi leadership and the ordinary citizenry. The significance of the
S-Project steadily diminished until it officially ended in June 1944.
Not only had Hanfstaengl’s intelligence reports become more erratic
HANFSTAENGL, ERNST • 161