WEBVTT - Hitler’s Olympics, Part 3: Mustache to Mustache 0:00:04.920 --> 0:00:22.880 Pushkin October thirty first, nineteen thirty five, Park Avenue, mid Taiminhattan. 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:25.440 A great two friends from the Advertising Club of New 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:29.720 York City and present another interesting luncheon meeting of this organization. 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:34.519 The meal is served grilled Boston squad with Chris bacon 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:40.600 or breaded vealsteak Vienna style, followed by old fashioned strawberry shortcack. 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:44.080 The plates are cleared away. The president of the club 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:48.000 introduces the head table, a long row of distinguished gentleman, 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:52.760 and then the agenda of the day. 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:56.160 The Olympics to be held in Germany in nineteen thirty six. 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:04.920 Forgetting the thought of every nation the world over, it 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:09.000 seemed fitting then that we should go to our guest 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:09.520 of the day. 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:14.160 He gestures to a man sitting next to him with 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:19.720 a fabulous, thriving mustache, Charles Hitchcock Cheryl. 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:24.479 Why do we call on General Cheryl? First of all, 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:32.640 he's an athlete himself. He's probably the only man who 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:37.600 won seven intercillegiate championships while attending jail. 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:42.640 He lists Cheryl's many accomplishments, his time as a diplomat, 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:46.000 his training as a lawyer, his service in the New 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:46.960 York National guard. 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:51.279 Probably, though I should emphasize above everything else, the fact 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:56.920 that for fifteen years he's been a member of the 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:03.200 American Olympic Committee, in a nice little Olympic committee, and 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:06.880 we've asked him to come here to clear up the 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:13.160 fall which some feel exists about this nineteen thirty six 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:14.280 Olympic situation. 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:18.400 And there is no better man to clear up this 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:30.920 Olympic situation than Charles Hitchcock. Cheryl, of course, he opens 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:33.360 his Advertising Club talk with a joke. 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:39.000 Your president has spoken as though I was dead and 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:41.720 in a coffin, and he was speaking at the funeral. 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.240 He left out what I think is the most important 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:51.359 thing that he put and that is that I have 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:54.360 led the happiest life of anybody you ever met in 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:54.799 your life. 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.640 He beams, He looks around happily, his eyes twinkle. This 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:03.040 is his kind of room. He launches into a brief 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.880 and modest account of his sprinting accomplishments at Yale. He 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:10.080 speaks of his key role in the invention of the 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:13.040 crouching start on how the press love to talk about it. 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:16.640 I have a wife at pome So, sir, you've getched 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:20.320 the myathletic path. She says, why is it that whenever 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:25.440 you achieve anything, they must sprint half naked pictures of you? 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.960 And then Charles Cheryl tells the assembled group the story 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:35.720 of how he has rescued the Olympic Games from the 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:44.000 doubters and the naysayers, not once, but twice. Welcome to 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:47.440 episode three of Hitler's Olympics, our story about the nineteen 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:51.200 thirty six Games, the most important games in the history 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:54.480 of the Olympics. In the previous installment, we met our 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:58.720 would be hero, Charles Cheryl, who single handedly broken the 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:02.680 deal in Vienna, promise that he believed would save the 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:06.720 nineteen thirty six Olympics, a promise from the Nazis not 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:11.240 to exclude Jewish athletes from the Games. But now the 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:14.920 deal is imperiled, there are renewed calls for an Olympic boycott, 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:19.560 and our hero has been compelled once again to come 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:30.680 to the rescue. All human societies organize themselves into a pyramid, 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:34.440 with ordinary people at the bottom and elites at the top. 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:38.120 And the crucial thing about the world Charles Cheryl grew 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:41.520 up in America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:45.520 is at the top of the pyramid is really really small. 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:50.000 It's a pinprick. It's basically rich white men. And if 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:52.880 you were all so handsome and a fraternity brother from Yale, 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:57.120 so much the better. Charles Cheryl was all those things. 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:01.040 He was at the very apex of the pinbrick. And 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.479 right from the beginning what distinguished Charles Cheryl was his 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:08.400 intuitive understanding of the rules that governed the top of 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:12.840 the pyramid, like, for example, never say a discouraging word 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:16.120 about another person in that tiny group at the very 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:21.279 very top. I'm reading to you now from Cheryl's unpublished memoirs, 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:23.920 where he recounts the story of the time he was 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:26.920 part of a group visiting the White House and presented 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:30.520 the first Lady, Grace Coolidge, with a bouquet of roses 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:33.800 that had been named in her honor. I did this, 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:38.520 Cheryl writes, with the comment that the presentation of coolidge 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:42.360 roses to missus Coolidge was but holding the mirror up 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:47.480 to nature. She replied, not exactly, because the roses are blondes, 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:56.880 and I am a brunette. Ernest cafalis all round. Rule 0:05:56.960 --> 0:05:59.920 number two. If you are outside this type, little sir, 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:03.800 at the top of the pyramid, Charles Cheryl doesn't see you. 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:07.240 This is a crucial point. There is a certain kind 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:10.240 of racist who is racist because he or she harbors 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.360 an obsession with the other. In the Jim Crow South, 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:17.320 for example, swimming pools were segregated because white people didn't 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:20.240 want to share the same water as black people. The 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:24.040 idea that something might wash off black skin and linger 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:27.200 in the water gross them out. It kept them up 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:32.000 at night. It was visceral. That's not Charles Cheryl. He 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.560 has plenty of black people in his life. They work 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:37.320 in the kitchen, they take his coat, but the thought 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:40.279 that he is sharing his Manhattan townhouse with them does 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:43.040 not keep him up at night. He has arranged his 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:45.559 life so that he doesn't have to think about them 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:49.160 at all. So when it comes to the nineteen thirty 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:52.440 six Olympics and Jews in Germany, you might be wondering, 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:56.919 is Cheryl a n anti Semite? Well not like Hitler 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:00.560 was an anti Semite. Hitler got all worked up about Jews. 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:04.320 People like Cheryl, on the other hand, kept their voices down. 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:09.239 What is the attitude of these this kind of person 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:11.400 in this era towards Jews. 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:15.960 Let's see where to begin. 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:17.800 Nick Lemon historian. 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:22.720 So you're really talking about these sort of upper patrician classes, right. 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:31.000 So typically these people lived inside a series of institutions 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:36.440 that were quote unquote restricted, which meant, you know, in 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:40.480 the broadest sense, only gentlemen could be in them, and 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.760 in this specific sense usually meant no Jews. So this 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:51.360 would apply to you know, private clubs, neighborhoods that often 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:55.240 had deed restrictions that you know, no Jews could live there. 0:07:55.440 --> 0:08:00.000 You know, very very often workplaces had rules against Jews 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:04.400 who's being hired. It was understood that Jews weren't allowed 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:08.800 in this world of sort of upper class gentlemen and ladies. 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:13.800 People in Cheryl's class arranged their lives so that they 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:15.200 didn't have to deal with Jews. 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:17.880 And I think they would have thought, you know, Jews, 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:24.280 or course, they're vulgar, they're not gentlemanly, they think about 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:26.520 money all the time, things like that. 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:29.160 But they didn't think of Jews. To use one of 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:36.600 Hitler's favorite words, as Vermin. Cheryl's great friend on the 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:40.680 International Olympic Committee was the group's president, the Belgian count 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:44.640 unreaded by La Tour. Remember Latour's wife was the one 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:47.840 who wrote Hitler a thank you note when he invaded Belgium. 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:52.800 Now she wouldn't call herself a Nazi. She would say 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:55.400 that sending a thank you note to your invaders upon 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:58.640 the occasion of your country's invasion was just good manners, 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:01.400 like sending a bud cake to the family that moves 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:05.280 into the mansion across the street. The Count, meanwhile, once 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.040 said of Jews in a letter to a friend that 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:11.960 he wasn't fond of them. He wrote, the Jews usually 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:16.440 quote shout before there is reason to do so. The Jews, 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:20.160 in the view of the cultured men of the European aristocracy, 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:27.240 were annoying and vulgar and a little bit exasperating. But 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.319 the Count was quite clear that you couldn't ban Jews 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.720 from the Olympics. Just because a particular race was annoying 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:36.800 and vulgar didn't mean that they couldn't participate in say 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:41.280 the long Job. People like bay Latour and Charles Cheryl 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.720 liked Jews in theory, but just not in practice, in 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:49.040 contrast to the Nazis, who didn't like Jews in practice 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:54.120 or in theory. In nineteen thirty five, that distinction seemed important. 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:02.480 Oh Ru three from the top of the pyramid. Remember 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.240 when we said in the last episode that another of 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:09.240 the people Cheryl reminds us of is Candide's pangloss, the 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:14.920 man who believes that all is necessarily for the best end. Essentially, 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:18.760 everything happens for a reason, and a good reason at that. 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:22.000 I mean, how could it not when you're living a 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:24.040 life like Charles Hitchcock Cheryl. 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:27.440 I have led the happiest life of anybody you ever 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:28.439 met in your life. 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:33.240 That's not just a statement of character and disposition, It's 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:37.120 an ideological belief. He looks around at those who would 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:42.079 question the status quo, radicals, communists, suffragette's Jews, and he says, 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.520 what are you complaining about? From where I sit at 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:51.320 the top of the pyramid, the view is pretty great, Okay, 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:55.960 final rule of pyramids and maybe the most important. From 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:59.640 his happy perch high up on the pyramid, Charles Cheryl 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:04.040 con trucks the following syllogism. If we are really happy 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:06.560 with things just as they are, then what do we 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:10.480 make of those at the very top responsible for keeping 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:13.520 things just as they are? We like them a lot. 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:20.439 Charles Cheryl's great literary accomplishment, Apart from the books he 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:24.160 wrote about Stained Glass was an ambitious work of history. 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:28.360 He told the story of Otto von Bismarck, the nineteenth 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:33.599 century strong man who unified Germany. Bismarck was a master strategist, 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:38.960 steely character, enormous, bushy eyebrows, a furious mustache, a jaw 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:42.840 chiseled from the finest Bavarian granite, a row of medals 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:47.880 on his crisply starched tunic. They called him the Iron Chancellor, 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:52.600 and in his treatise Cheryl compared Bismarck with his other 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:59.080 great man crush, the Italian strong man Benito Mussolini Ilduchack 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:06.120 vor of modern fascism. Cheryl admired Bismarck, but Mussolini, for 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:09.400 Il Ducce he had true passion. In the course of 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:12.959 his research, he would visit Mussolini in his massive office. 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:16.800 As he would write, it is a fashion for writers 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:21.400 upon Mussolini to describe this lofty room, devoid of all decoration, 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:27.280 as an entirely appropriate background for this forthright statesman. Possibly 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:30.360 they are right, but I see a wider, bolder background 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:34.720 for him. Il Ducjay would come striding over, and Cheryl's 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:40.480 heart would go all a flutter looking back on the memory, 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.920 He wrote, if he has known you several years, the 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:48.520 greeting is pleasingly cordial, his caesar like features lighting up, 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:53.480 and those piercing eyes softening into friendliness, and then a 0:12:53.480 --> 0:13:00.439 good manly handscheck. Was Cheryl's Bismarck and Mussolini a good book? 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:05.080 Probably not. It got a three sentence review in the 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:09.960 American Journal of Sociology, ending with the line Cheryl's special 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.800 field of competence would appear to be handling and assessing 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:18.480 columns of marching men. A lesser man would be crippled 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:23.120 by a sentence like that, but not Charles Cheryl. Because 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:26.800 when Cheryl sent Mussolini his book, Il Ducce liked it 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:29.679 so much he gave Cheryl the highest of all Italian 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:34.280 military and civilian honors. He made him a Knight Grand 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:38.160 Cross of the Order of the Crown of Italy, a 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:43.720 gold star, plus a striking right shoulder sash. Mussolini sent 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:46.200 it in a box to New York, where it arrived 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:50.240 in time for Cheryl's twenty fifth wedding anniversary, a dinner 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:53.400 at the Pier Hotel with one hundred and forty two guests, 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:57.240 where the honor was pinned on Cheryl's chest by the 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:01.760 Italian Consul General in the presence of the French, Argentine, 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:08.800 Spanish and Cuban ambassadors and Dutch, Swedish, Greek and Czechoslovak ministers. 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:11.120 A guess list that all of us have dreamt about 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:16.400 for our twenty fifth wedding anniversary. Let the assistant professors 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:19.880 of sociology write what they choose about the book. Our 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:22.640 hero was now a Knight of the Grand Cross of 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:32.240 the Order of the Crown of Italy. Now think back 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:37.400 to Dorothy Thompson, America's most celebrated foreign correspondent, who famously 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:40.560 interviews Hitler in nineteen thirty one when he is on 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:44.320 the cusp of power. Thompson's day job is not a 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.840 lot different from Cheryl's. As part of his diplomatic duties 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:51.280 or his role at the IOC, Cheryl goes around Europe 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:56.040 meeting with heads of state and aristocrats. As a foreign correspondent, 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.120 Thompson does the same thing. I'm sure they meet some 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.360 of the same people, but she's not at the top 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:05.360 of the pyramid. She was raised by a struggling preacher. 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:08.920 Her mother died when Thompson was a child. Her life 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:12.640 experiences haven't made her comfortable with power or left her 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:15.120 thinking that the world is just fine the way it is. 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:19.120 Quite the opposite. When Thompson got out of college, she 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:23.480 immediately threw herself into the suffrage movement. She spent three 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:26.040 years on that fight, and when it finally looked like 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.000 women might get the vote, she decides, I want to 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:32.280 find the next fight, and she buys a ticket on 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:34.120 an ocean liner, and. 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.200 Then she landed in Europe just as fascism was starting 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:37.840 to build. 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:40.440 The historian Sarah Church, well. 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:43.080 It's actually important that we all remember that that fascism 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:46.520 was by no means a German phenomenon, especially in the 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:50.040 nineteen twenties, or uniquely certainly not a uniquely German phenomenon. 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:53.160 And in the twenties it's Mussolini. Well, of course gives 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:57.200 it its name. So Thompson traveled to Italy. She encountered 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:02.840 Italian fascists. She was educating herself about Italian and European fascism. 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:06.000 She marries a Jew, a Hungarian writer, a radical. She 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:09.040 meets his crowd, artists, writers, outsiders. 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.880 This was an experience, a relationship that opened her eyes 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:17.640 and her understanding to political conversations in Eastern Europe around 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:23.960 the rising tensions and all of the volatility of the 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.680 European political situation at that time. So by the time 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:29.960 Hitler came into power in nineteen thirty three, she'd spent 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:32.880 a decade becoming an, you know, pretty expert. Certainly for 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.360 an American, she probably had a more nuanced understanding than 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:39.440 virtually any other American of her generation, because she'd spent 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:43.400 the best part of that decade living among Europeans who 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:47.120 were breathing and debating and arguing and figuring out what 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:49.400 these new fascist movements were going to mean. 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:52.200 But I was care, I want to go back to 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:57.680 the thing about she starts with the suffrage movement, and 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:02.400 I wondered whether that experience kind of permanently sensitizes you 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:08.960 to the kind of the plight of the powerless in 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:13.040 a certain way, Like, I might be really hard to 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.320 be pro fascist if you spent your early twenties fighting 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:17.760 for women suffrage, don't you think? 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:21.800 Yeah? Absolutely so. She certainly she had a strong sense 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:26.320 of sympathy and identification with people who saw themselves as 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:30.080 being an oppressed class and oppressed minority. 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:34.280 The point is that when Dorothy Thompson thinks of Mussolini, 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:37.240 it is not to remark on his manly handshake and 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:40.560 piercing eyes. And when she goes to see Hitler, she 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:43.200 doesn't defer to him just because he's on the cusp 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:46.280 of running Germany. She sees him for what he is, 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:51.960 an angry, vicious demagogue. But if you are Charles Cheryl 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:56.040 looking at that same man, what do you see? You 0:17:56.080 --> 0:18:11.680 see someone very different. In the summer of nineteen thirty five, 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:14.560 the deal to save the Games that Cheryl had hammered 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:18.720 out in Vienna two years before is imperiled. The Germans 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:22.200 had promised to keep their Olympic team open to Jewish athletes, 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:27.199 but Nazi anti Semitism is accelerating and people around the 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:31.879 world are threatening again to boycott the games. Cheryl is 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.639 worried that his diplomatic master stroke will come to nothing. 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:38.879 He knows he has to act, and now he sees 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:43.399 the mistake he made back in Vienna he dealt with underlings. 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:51.360 He realizes it's time to confront Herr Hitler himself. Does 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:55.680 he go through Putsy Hitler's wagner playing Harvard trained pr men. 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:59.560 Probably Putsy was always the point of entry for Americans 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:04.000 want again audience with her Hitler. If Charles Cheryl had 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:06.440 lived to see how things turned out with the Nazis, 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:10.680 he would have edited his papers, particularly the Chief Offender 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.119 scrap Book thirty five, that he would have buried in 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:17.119 the back yard of his estate in the Hamptons, along 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:19.320 with his Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.360 Crown of Italy. That's what people like Charles Cheryl did 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:26.680 after the war, cleaned house. But Charles Cheryl died too soon, 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:31.040 and so there remains in the archives of the New 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:35.879 York Historical Society a love letter in seven doubles based 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:43.320 type pages. His Excellency, reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler received me 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:47.119 at noon August twenty fourth, nineteen thirty five in his 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:51.680 own private Munich residence. Let me, first of all, frankly 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:55.399 confess that this will not prove a journalistic interview with 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:59.760 Germany's chief of state. It merely narrates a foreigner's visit 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:05.840 to an undeniably great leader. As a gift, Cheryl brings 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:09.560 Hitler two of his books, his treatise on German Stained 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:13.640 Glass Windows, and of course his master work comparing Mussolini 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:18.760 and Bismarck. Then they talked man to man for an 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:26.439 hour and ten minutes. He wrote, I was immediately struck 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:30.040 by the fact that Hitler deliberately chose the seat facing 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:33.320 the window and its bright sunlight. When in nineteen twenty 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:37.240 one I talked with fifteen European prime ministers plus four 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:40.840 presidents and two years later nine kings, none of them 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:44.760 did this, nor have any leading statesman I have since 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:48.840 then met Charles Cheryl had nothing but respect for a 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:55.359 man unafraid to sit facing the window he goes on. 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:01.000 His photographers do him grave injustice in two Guards. They 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:03.520 do not show enough the strength of his upper head 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:07.199 above the expressive eyes, and give no hint of the 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:10.560 engaging human being he can be when he wants to be. 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:15.560 Dorothy Thompson, remember, looked into those same eyes and found 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:20.840 the peculiar shine which often distinguishes Genius's alcoholics and hysterics. 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:27.800 It's like they're meeting a different man. Thompson found Hitler formless, cartilaginous, 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:32.520 ill poised, and insecure, but Cheryl finds himself drawn to 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:37.480 Hitler's famously short mustache. It's not like Cheryl's mustache, which 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:40.320 of course is full and luxuriant and suggestive of all 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:45.320 manner of daring and panash. But something this concise yet 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:51.920 emphatic for the fur totally works. It suits Hitler's face 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:56.960 while speaking, because revealing all of the expression around the mouth. 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:02.040 Welcome to the top of the pyramid, my little mustachioed friend. 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:08.200 So what do the two men talk about? Here's Cheryl again. 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:12.399 Because I am a member of the International Olympic Committee, 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:16.320 we naturally spoke of our nineteen thirty six games schedule 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:22.520 for Berlin. In these he expressed keen interest. Then Cheryl 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:26.399 brings up what he calls the unfortunate Jewish question. Not 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:29.840 the Nazis' anti Semitic policies writ large, of course, but 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:33.280 the annoying controversy over Jews of the German Olympic team 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:38.600 and how it's threatening to derail the games. Cheryl has 0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:42.159 a proposal for Hitler, a simple way to calm the 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:46.160 waters back in the United States. Just put a Jew 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:49.400 on the Olympic team. One will do. Cheryl even has 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:53.040 someone in mind, a fencer named Helene Mayer. Mayor is 0:22:53.119 --> 0:22:55.840 German and living in Los Angeles. She's one of the 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:59.840 greatest fencers of all time. Technically she's only half Jewish 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:02.919 since her mom is a proper Arian. Cheryl thinks that 0:23:02.960 --> 0:23:06.960 fact will help persuade Hitler. Plus mayor is blonde and 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:11.560 blue eyed and really looks the part. Hitler pushes back, 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:14.919 so Cheryl brings up the Vienna Declaration that it hammered 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:19.120 out two years previously at the Hotel Imperial Germany's agreement 0:23:19.200 --> 0:23:23.840 in principle not to exclude Jews. Hitler says he's never 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:28.080 heard of the Vienna deal. Cheryl is shocked, what how 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:32.679 is that even possible? He doubles down. Hitler responds, German 0:23:32.800 --> 0:23:37.280 sports are for arians only. Cheryl comes at him again. 0:23:37.440 --> 0:23:40.000 It's back and forth, back and forth. Later, in a 0:23:40.040 --> 0:23:43.960 note to Frank and Roosevelt's private secretary, Cheryl describes the 0:23:44.000 --> 0:23:49.320 scene my book. Bismarck and Mussolini lay before him, and 0:23:49.400 --> 0:23:53.480 he faced a fine limback portrait of Bismarck. It was 0:23:53.520 --> 0:23:55.919 a last chance, so I went right at him with 0:23:55.960 --> 0:24:01.320 a question, what would Bismarck, master of foreigner's psychology do today? 0:24:02.720 --> 0:24:07.040 He was polite but showed nothing. Had My appeal won 0:24:08.040 --> 0:24:11.960 no sign. Two titans duking it out at the top 0:24:12.000 --> 0:24:17.840 of the pyramid. Mustache to mustache. It was dreadful nerve 0:24:17.920 --> 0:24:20.320 for me to tackle him in his own Munich home. 0:24:21.000 --> 0:24:23.679 But I am only a private citizen and he can't 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:28.439 eat me. Cheryl leaves the meeting, has his bold gambit worked, 0:24:28.760 --> 0:24:32.680 daring her Hitler to put himself in autovon Bismarck's shoes 0:24:33.119 --> 0:24:37.760 WWBD What would Bismarck do? Cheryl dashes off a letter 0:24:37.800 --> 0:24:42.520 to his friend by latour. Prepare yourself, he says, for 0:24:42.600 --> 0:24:46.159 the very real possibility that all of my brilliant diplomatic 0:24:46.160 --> 0:24:50.440 stratagems in Vienna two years ago have come to Nod, 0:24:51.400 --> 0:24:55.159 please speak to him. Cheryl pleads, we need Hitler to 0:24:55.200 --> 0:25:00.040 compromise for the sake of the games. He writes, It 0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:03.800 will be a trying test for even your remarkable tact 0:25:03.800 --> 0:25:06.520 in Savo Affaire, and the sooner you meet the situation, 0:25:07.000 --> 0:25:10.359 the better the hope for your success instead of a 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:20.840 destructive explosion. Did our hero endure a sleepless night in 0:25:20.880 --> 0:25:24.399 his agonies? Did he turn the essential question on himself? 0:25:25.160 --> 0:25:28.320 W w b D. What would Bismarck do if, say, 0:25:28.600 --> 0:25:32.720 Mussolini renegged on an agreement, but then he gets a 0:25:32.760 --> 0:25:35.960 note in the mail. It's there in the famous scrap 0:25:36.040 --> 0:25:40.000 book thirty five, a little embossed card inviting him to 0:25:40.040 --> 0:25:44.840 the Nuremberg Rally in mid September, the annual propaganda festival 0:25:45.119 --> 0:25:47.920 put on by the Nazi Party. I'm sure you've seen 0:25:47.960 --> 0:25:52.840 film clips, thousands of soldiers marching in lockstep, chanting Hyle Hitler. 0:25:53.760 --> 0:25:58.280 Cheryl lives for moments such as these. Remember, even the 0:25:58.320 --> 0:26:01.480 American Journal of Sociology has noted his taste when it 0:26:01.520 --> 0:26:05.520 comes to columns of marching men. So he accepts the 0:26:05.560 --> 0:26:09.320 invitation from the Nazi Party. He packs an overnight bag. 0:26:09.520 --> 0:26:11.480 They offer him a ride on Hitler's train. 0:26:11.960 --> 0:26:17.840 He says yes, And then in his scrap book there 0:26:17.880 --> 0:26:24.280 then follows many pages of press coverage Schwastika's Nazi propaganda 0:26:24.320 --> 0:26:25.000 that he collected. 0:26:25.240 --> 0:26:28.399 Mccullague bend Adaf Haffrey reporting on what he found in 0:26:28.480 --> 0:26:31.480 Cheryl's papers at the New York Historical Society. 0:26:31.640 --> 0:26:35.119 There's an amazing photo of him at the Nuremberg Rally 0:26:35.200 --> 0:26:39.640 at some official events surrounding it, with all these medals 0:26:39.840 --> 0:26:43.919 on his tuxedo jacket, sort of gazing up at the 0:26:43.960 --> 0:26:46.600 ceiling in awe, because you imagine he's in some vast 0:26:46.600 --> 0:26:51.080 hall surrounded by just they look, there's such prototypical Nazis. 0:26:51.480 --> 0:26:55.159 So it's just this man kind of daphly wandering around 0:26:55.280 --> 0:26:59.119 this grand hall, surrounded by these deeply evil people, and 0:26:59.200 --> 0:27:02.760 completely unaware of the historical significance of what he's witnessing, 0:27:02.920 --> 0:27:05.600 other than that it's a very important event and therefore 0:27:05.720 --> 0:27:07.399 must be prepared for his scrapbook. 0:27:12.520 --> 0:27:16.000 The nineteen thirty five Nuremberg rally is where Hitler announced 0:27:16.040 --> 0:27:19.680 the so called Blood Laws, outlawing marriage between Arians and 0:27:19.760 --> 0:27:23.840 Jews and stripping German Jews of their citizenship. It was 0:27:23.880 --> 0:27:28.000 the clearest articulation yet of the Nazis' murderous anti Semitism, 0:27:28.240 --> 0:27:31.119 and for many Americans, Nuremberg put the conundrum of the 0:27:31.160 --> 0:27:34.840 games into sharp focus. If that's who these people are, 0:27:35.240 --> 0:27:38.520 can we really go there? But that's not how Cheryl 0:27:38.600 --> 0:27:39.000 sees it. 0:27:40.560 --> 0:27:44.520 So what does he do at the Nuremberg rally? He 0:27:45.080 --> 0:27:50.360 collects signatures he and his scrap book has autographs from 0:27:50.400 --> 0:27:54.320 people he met at the Nuremberg rallies that are scrawled 0:27:54.320 --> 0:27:58.760 on this one of the brochures from it, describing what's 0:27:58.760 --> 0:28:01.760 going to happen on September in nineteen thirty five and 0:28:01.800 --> 0:28:04.520 then there's all these pencil signatures from what I can 0:28:04.520 --> 0:28:07.359 only assume it's prominent members of the party. 0:28:07.720 --> 0:28:09.200