It was 1932 and seven years before World War II began. Winston Churchill went to Germany to do some research on the battles of the first Duke of Marlborough, a distant relative of Winston. A Harvard graduate and millionaire, Putzi Hanfstaengl, a friend of Hitler, had lunch with Churchill. Thinking he could bring some understanding between Churchill and Hitler, Putzi offered to arrange a meeting between the two men.
The encounter and meeting between Hitler and Churchill had all been arranged, until Churchill asked Putzi some stinging questions about the Jews. He asked Hanfstaengl, "Why is your chief (Hitler) so violent about the Jews? I can quite understand being angry with Jews who have done wrong or who are against the country of Germany, and I understand resisting them if they try to monopolize power in any walk of life; but what is the sense of being against a man simply because of his birth? How can any man help how he is born? Tell Hitler for me that anti-Semitism may be a good starter, but it is a bad starter [with me]."
Putzi’s face fell. The next day he told Churchill the meeting was off. He made an excuse and said Hitler had other plans for the week. Churchill remained in Germany for seven more days but no further overtures were ever made between him and Hitler.
Hitler asked Putzi, "What part does Churchill play in the scheme of things? He is a nobody!" Puzi shot back to the future Chancellor and dictator of Germany, "People say the same thing about you!"
Putzi would almost pay for that remark with his life. The man who had so funded Hitler’s rise to power had to flee for his life. In a few years 1,600 intellectuals and scientists had to leave Germany, and shortly, thousands of Jews would suffer and be put to death. And the final irony, it would be Churchill who would almost alone during the first of the war, lead the verbal charge, and who would bring due wrath down upon Hitler and those who took up the cause against God’s people, the Jews!
Churchill’s sense of where things were going with the Nazis concerning the Jews was right on.
--Dr. Mal Couch
