The Hitler Intervention

Some chapters of history are so overwhelming, they almost feel inevitable.

Like we never had a choice, no alternate path to go down.

The ascent of Adolf Hitler can feel like one of those moments.

The devastation caused by his Third Reich was so absolute, it's hard to imagine a world without it.

But more than 10 years before Hitler rose to power, he was seen as an angry, insecure leader of an obscure political party.

His racist views were often dismissed even by his own party members.

Nothing about Hitler's rise to power was inevitable.

It was the culmination of a series of decisions made by the people around him.

In fact, we can pinpoint one of those decisions in 1923.

A split-second choice made by a woman who most people have never heard of that altered the course of history.

and ultimately led more than 70 million people to their death.

On today's episode, the Hitler Intervention.

This is a twist of history.

It's late 1922 in Munich, Germany.

Helena Hofstengel walks down the hallway of her lavish apartment, following her toddler's son Egong.

He's almost two years old.

He's been walking for a few months now and he's getting pretty fast.

They turn into the living room where Helena's husband Ernst is sitting, reading the paper.

He winks at Helena, then tells her their dinner guest should be arriving soon.

Helena takes a seat on the edge of the couch, letting Egon play with the toy car at her feet.

A few weeks ago, Ernst met a rising politician at one of the beer halls in Munich.

He was giving an impassioned speech about the national debt crisis.

and Ernst felt drawn to his charisma and vigor.

The man had recently been elected leader of a small but growing political party, and Ernst wants to get in on the ground floor.

He says the man is a little rough around the edges, but thinks that with the right amount of money and mentorship, he could be a real player.

Ever since Helena and Ernst moved to Germany from New York last year, Ernst's been involved in politics.

He wants to help Germany rebuild after the Great War.

Helena's from Long Island, but Ernst is from Bavaria, Germany's largest and southernmost state.

Although his mother is American and he's lived in the U.S.

for most of his life, he even graduated from Harvard.

But after the war, he felt a responsibility to come home, and Helena was open to the move.

She was tired of being ostracized in New York.

America and Germany were enemies during the war, so for the past eight years, Helena and Ernst were often met with suspicion and prejudice, like they were spies living behind enemy lines.

Ernst, because he was from Bavaria, and Helena, because her mother's German.

Her whole family speaks German fluently and tries to maintain a connection to their culture.

After the war, it made them pariahs, so she and Ernst decided to move to a beautiful apartment in Munich last year, shortly after Egon was born.

The rich smell of beef stew wafts in from the kitchen.

Helena asked her cook to make a marinated roast for dinner tonight, but there wasn't a good enough cut of meat at the market, so she settled for stew with potato spetzel.

This is one of the things Helena misses most about New York, readily available food.

Ernst says that the food in Munich used to be exceptional, but that was before Germany lost the war and the national economy tanked.

The Great War broke out in 1914 when the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was assassinated in Serbia.

It was an act of revolution.

At the time, many of the Balkan states were seeking independence from Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.

After the assassination, the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia, which set off an unfortunate chain reaction.

At the time, most European nations had alliances with one or two other countries in the region.

If one went to war, the other followed.

Serbia was allied with Russia.

Austria-Hungary was allied with Germany.

Like dominoes, because of these alliances, Italy, France, Great Britain, Belgium, the United States, even Japan were forced to get involved.

Between 1914 and 1919, more than 16 million soldiers and civilians died.

Europe was decimated, and Germany got saddled with the debt.

That was a condition laid out in the Treaty of Versailles, the peace negotiation that ended the war.

Germany had to pay millions of dollars in reparations to the Allied powers.

That's France, Russia, Japan, Italy, the U.S., and Great Britain.

Plus, they had to rebuild their own nation with zero financial support.

By the time Ernst and Helena moved to Munich in 1921, Germany was drowning in debt.

The crippling debt caused economic hyperinflation.

By 1922, the mark is essentially worthless.

Not long ago, a loaf of bread cost less than one mark.

Now it's $160.

Many people use the money as fire kindling.

It's cheaper than actually buying firewood.

Most of the country is living in poverty.

Ernst and Helena are only well off because they can live like kings on American money.

But even with their considerable wealth, it's hard to keep the pantry full.

And it doesn't seem like things are getting better anytime soon.

The new democratic government, the Weimar Republic, is rife with political discord.

Ever since the Republic was formed three years ago, they've seen multiple chancellors in seven different cabinets.

The Republic is wildly unpopular, especially given how readily they signed the Treaty of Versailles.

In addition to reparations, the treaty gave away German lands and capped the size of their military.

To Ernst, the German government sold out its people.

And he's not alone.

Most of the growing political movements in Germany see the treaty as an utter betrayal.

A loud knock thunders through the apartment.

The Hamfstengel's dinner guest has arrived.

Ernst lurches out of his chair and heads into the ornate foyer.

Helena scoops up Egan, then follows him to the front door.

Ernst wraps his hand around the knob and pulls open the heavy oak door, welcoming a scraggly-looking man into the foyer.

Helena's surprised.

He's even more hopeless looking than Ernst described.

She looks the man up and down, taking in his steely eyes and drooping facial features.

His shoes are scuffed and his clothes are mismatched and disheveled.

A white shirt and black tie, paired with a blue coat, brown vest, and gray hat.

Helena offers her hand and says hello.

When the man's eyes land on her, they light up, and Helena smiles to herself.

She's always had a way with men, especially in Munich.

Most everyone is living in squalor.

So her manicured blonde hair and well-tailored clothes stand out in a crowd.

Ernst shakes the man's hand and steers him into the living room toward a pair of matching armchairs near the fireplace.

Helena sets Egon down on the floor near his toys, then reclaims her perch on the sofa.

She listens as Ernst and the man talk.

She learns the man served in the war and suffered a mustard gas injury that kept him laid up in the hospital for weeks.

He watched his friends die.

His homeland has been ripped apart, and now a useless government is allowing Germans to starve in the streets.

His anger is palpable.

Ernst agrees with the man's points, though the man constantly interrupts both Ernst and Helena before either of them can really get a word out.

Helena laughs to herself.

She's dealt with men like this her whole life and is happy to let this guy monologue.

As the conversation veers into politics, the man launches into an impassioned diatribe about Germany's future.

He's ready to lead a revolution and help Germany regain its former glory.

Helena can feel her attention fading and her eyes settle on Egon, who's now waddling around the living room with a toy car in hand.

He darts to his dad's chair, then turns and runs smack into an intricate wood chair with carved lion's heads on the legs.

Egon falls to the floor, then begins crying from shock.

Helena jumps up to grab him, but before she can cross the living room, the man bolts out of his chair and kneels next to Egon.

He slaps the carved lion's head and says, There, we'll teach him to bite you.

Egon laughs.

The man smacks the lion head again, and Egon erupts into a fit of giggles.

Helena's reluctant to admit that she's impressed.

Sure, this guy's awkward and brash, but she's starting to see why Ernst likes him.

The man turns to Helena and gives her a charmed smile.

She can tell he's smitten and knows Ernst sees it too.

It's good.

They can use it to their advantage.

Ernst can help mold this man into the kind of person the public will listen to, and Helena can use her good looks to keep him in check.

As his star rises, so will Ernst and Helena.

She walks over to pick up Egan so he can look their dinner guest in the eye.

She tells Egan to say hello to Daddy's friend, the newly elected leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, also known as the Nazi Party.

His name is Adolf Hitler, the next great leader of Germany.

It's September 27th, 1923, a year since Adolf Hitler first came to dinner at the Hampstengels.

Since then, Hitler has become a fixture in the Hammstengel home.

He comes over so often that Helene and Ernst joke that their living room is his own personal coffeehouse.

But tonight's visit is not a social call.

Ernst sits in his armchair watching Hitler pace the length of the living room, ranting and screaming.

Granted, Hitler comes over to complain about things all the time, but right now, Ernst knows he has good reason to be angry.

Until a few hours ago, the Nazi Party had 14 meetings planned around Munich tonight.

But newly installed leaders of the Bavarian state have banned the meetings.

They're worried the Nazis are planning some kind of coup.

Hitler admits the leaders are not wrong, per se.

Last October in Italy, Benito Mussolini and 30,000 of his black shirt supporters marched from Naples to Rome and overthrew the Italian government.

Hitler is enamored with Mussolini and keen to meet him.

Hitler talks about Mussolini's march non-stop and doing something similar in Germany.

But he's made no concrete plans.

And besides, Germany is a republic now.

The new Bavarian government has no right to suppress a competing political party based on rumor.

Ernst shifts in his armchair, listening intently.

He's one of Hitler's political advisors now.

Not that Hitler takes other people's suggestions very often.

Ernst is also part of Hitler's inner circle, mostly because he's been bankrolling the Nazi movement.

He sold his share in his family's art gallery in New York and used the money to turn the Nazi Party's four-page newspaper into a daily publication.

It's helped Hitler's base swell to around 55,000 supporters.

Hitler is still relatively unknown in Munich.

But thanks to Ernst, that's changing rapidly.

They become so close that Ernst even broached the idea of asking Hitler to be Egon's godfather.

Helena saw the political advantage in making the ask, and Adolf was thrilled.

He agreed to be Egon's godfather right away.

Especially given the changing political climate of Germany as a whole.

Germany's economy has fully collapsed.

The exchange rate on the mark is now about 250 million to one American dollar.

People have reverted to the barter system.

Some use marks to wallpaper their homes.

The money's more valuable as insulation than currency.

Germans are destitute.

When the economy failed, their life savings were washed away.

Insurance policies aren't worth the paper they're written on.

Grocery shelves are empty, and the streets are full of beggars.

On top of that, Germany has repeatedly defaulted on reparation payments to the Allied powers.

At the beginning of the year, France sent troops to occupy Rua, Germany's most crucial industrial region.

Thousands of Germans were evicted from their homes, arrested for resisting, or left unemployed and destitute.

Violent clashes erupted between French soldiers and desperate Germans, but the Weimar Republic did nothing to help.

At this point, pretty much every right-wing political party across the country has one thing in common.

They all agree that the Weimar Republic has to go.

Yesterday, to help speed that along, the Bavarian Minister-President declared a state of emergency and appointed a state commissioner with supreme dictatorial powers.

The commissioner was backed by the Bavarian Army General and the chief of the state police.

This trio formed a triumvirate, similar to the Caesarean coalition that used their combined power to establish the Roman Empire.

And now, this triumvirate was fully in charge of the Bavarian state, which technically still answered to Berlin.

But it was obvious the triumvirate was planning a coup, so they couldn't have Hitler planning a secondary coup.

Too many coups in the kitchen, so to speak.

They were going to do everything they could to break up Hitler's supporters.

Hitler finally takes a breath and Ernst thinks he maybe maybe got the rant out of his system.

But a moment later, Hitler's back in it, raging about the spineless triumvirate, droning on about how ill-fitting they are to lead a revolution.

Ernst glances down the hallway and sees Helena move quietly between the kitchen and office, giving the living room a wide berth.

She understands the importance of keeping Hitler close, and she does like him genuinely, but she avoids these tirades like the plague.

Hitler's monologue devolves into his usual anti-Semitic ranting.

Germany is only in this mess because of communists and Jews.

Ernst usually tunes out this part of the monologue.

He knows Hitler's beliefs are unfounded.

If only for the fact that German Jews account for less than 1% of the population, there simply aren't enough of them to crash the economy, or whatever else Hitler blames them for.

He and Helena have always thought Hitler's anti-Semitism was a bit much, so they do their best to ignore it.

Finally, Hitler sits down in the lion-carved armchair, his forehead covered in sweat.

He's so angry his mustache is pulsing.

He tells Ernst that it's time to act.

He's already been punished for planning a revolution, so he may as well give them one.

It's November 8th, 1923, and Ernst runs up the stairs to his apartment in Munich and bursts through the front door.

He tells Helena to pack her things.

She and Egon are going to spend the next few days in the Bavarian countryside.

Helena rushes down the stairs from their bedroom, looking puzzled.

Ernst recently bought a villa in the country outside Munich, down the road from his mother's house.

They'd been planning to visit over the weekend but weren't supposed to leave for a few days.

Ernst physically guides Helena back up the stairs.

He says she and Egon are leaving immediately.

He doesn't want her in town for what's about to happen.

Her eyes widen with understanding.

The revolution is about to start.

It turned out the rumors about the triumvirate were true.

They were planning a nationalist march to Berlin to establish an authoritarian regime, just like Mussolini did in Italy.

And Hitler saw an opportunity.

He and his cohorts were already planning a march to take Berlin on November 11th.

Hitler would lead the march and assume the role of dictator.

But yesterday, Hitler got word that the triumvirate were giving speeches tomorrow night in a beer hall called the Berge Bruekeler.

They would all be in the same room in public.

Hitler decided they would take the Triumvirate hostage and force them to support his march to Berlin, so the revolution was moved up two days.

In less than an hour, Ernst has his family on a train headed to their villa.

Ernst drops off his family, then speeds back to Munich.

By the time he gets back into town, it's dark.

He parks on a side street in the center of town and heads towards a small square where Hitler and his followers are meeting.

He can see the crowd at the end of the alley, men dressed in ski caps and grey windbreakers, with bright red armbands that they've adopted as a symbol of the party.

Hitler says the black swastika on their armband belonged to their ancient Aryan ancestors.

Ernst takes his own armband out of his pocket and pulls it up his sleeve.

Then he walks over to Hitler, who's already wide-eyed and frenzied.

Soon, they begin the march down one of the cobblestone streets towards the beer hall.

The group grows restless as the huge brownstone building comes into view.

The excitement is palpable as they flood the square outside the beer hall.

and Hitler shoves open the front door and barrels inside.

Ernst follows, a horde of supporters behind him.

He runs into the main hall behind Hitler, who jumps on a table, waving his pistol above his head.

He fires a shot into the air.

There's a collective gasp, then the room goes silent.

In a booming voice, Hitler announces the revolution has begun.

On the far end of the hall, Ernst can see the Triumvirate.

They're flanked by a few security officials but are otherwise exposed.

Hitler lowers his pistol, aiming at the Triumvirate's table.

There's another collective gasp in the room.

Hitler says that the building is surrounded by 600 men, that the local police and army barracks are already occupied by his supporters, that the government has fallen, and there's a machine gun in the lobby ready to fire at anyone who resists or tries to run.

The hall fills with anxious whispers.

Half the crowd seems terrified, the other half is confused.

Most people are asking who this man is, or if his supporters could have really overtaken the police station and the local army barracks.

Hitler jumps off the table and charges over to the Triumvirate, his pistol still trained on them.

With dramatic flare, he announces that he has four bullets left, one for each of them and one for himself, if they fail to support his cause.

Then he and a few armed supporters usher the leaders into a side room at gunpoint.

In the main hall, the crowd is too stunned to speak.

They look around at the gray-clad supporters, unsure of how much danger they're truly in.

A few people sitting near the lobby peer out, trying to catch a glimpse of the supposed machine gun.

But as the minutes tick by and the shock wears off, the crowd gets restless.

Ernst hovers near the far wall, trying to stay out of the way in case a fistfight breaks out.

People start lobbying questions at the stormtroopers in gray, asking who they are and complaining that they want to go home.

Someone stands in confrontation, and for a moment, Ernst is worried things are about to turn violent.

But then, Hitler emerges from the side room looking triumphant and marches onto the stage that overlooks the hall.

He fires his pistol into the air again, and the room falls deathly still.

Hitler stands behind the podium and announces that they have reached a deal.

The Bavarian triumvirate will ally with the Nazi party and together they will march on Berlin to overthrow the spineless anti-German government.

For a moment, Ernst is worried.

The crowd looks skeptical and outright angry.

But as Hitler launches into one of his impassioned speeches, the mood in the room shifts.

People sit up a little straighter.

The crowd stirs as Hitler romanticizes the idea of revolution.

Even Ernst is moved.

Within minutes, the whole beer hall is on his side, clapping as Hitler calls for their loyalty and support.

When the speech ends, the crowd jumps to their feet, cheering as Hitler makes his way back to the side room.

Ernst follows, feeling exhilarated.

He realizes that some part of him never expected the revolution to get this far.

But this is really happening.

They are taking control of Germany.

In the side room, Hitler already has signed pledges of loyalty from the Bavarian leaders.

He's also received calls from the police station and other government buildings saying that his supporters have successfully seized control.

Back in the hall, the cheers are overwhelming.

Hitler beams with joy.

He tells the room that he's stepping out for an hour.

There's a matter across town he wants to see to in person.

He's leaving the triumvirate in the care of Erich Ludendorff, a respected German German general and one of his most avid supporters.

He tells Ernst to go into the city and enjoy a revolution in the making.

Ernst breathes in the crisp night air as he and the other Nazis pour into the square outside the beer hall.

He can't help but feel proud after hearing Hitler behind that podium rallying a crowd that was a leader up there, a polished, persuasive politician.

He follows Hitler's supporters down the street.

They wave imperial flags that were hidden beneath their jackets, announcing the revolution has begun.

They travel from square to square, chanting and singing.

Most of the people they pass look confused or hurry back inside to avoid a conflict.

They make a big loop back to the beer hall where the Triumvirate is being held, and Ernst heads inside to see how things are going.

The answer is, not good.

Hitler's back, and furious to learn that Ludendorff let the Triumvirate go.

They swore their loyalty to Hitler, but said they had business to tend to.

Given that two of the triumvirate were military men, Ludendorff felt he could trust them.

In his mind, military men didn't break their oaths, so he let them leave.

Ernst knows all too well what's about to happen.

The Triumvirate will denounce the revolution the moment they reach a safe house.

Ludendorff has just cost Hitler the support of the Bavarian government, and soon, He's certain police will pour in from all over Bavaria to arrest them all.

They've committed high treason tonight.

That carries a death sentence.

There's only one thing left to do.

Run for the border.

With any luck, they can get to Austria before the police have a chance to rally.

But then, Ernst hears a rumbling down the street.

For a moment, his heart sinks.

They're out of time.

The authorities are already here.

He runs outside to take a look and sees a line of military vehicles making their way toward the beer hall.

Except, the soldiers are waving Nazi flags.

Hitler comes out to greet the soldiers as they pull into the square.

There are at least 1,000 soldiers saying they caught wind of the revolution and they're here to help.

They arrested their own commanders and abandoned their barracks.

They're ready to fight for their homeland.

Hitler is thrilled.

He sends them across town to the triumvirate's offices and homes.

He says to occupy them.

Don't let anyone in or out.

Then he sends his stormtroopers in the opposite direction to the Ministry of Defense.

They're going to raid the Ministry and take as much ammunition as possible.

By midnight, Hitler's forces are dispersed, seizing buildings around the city.

And Hitler and Ernst are back in the side room, celebrating their budding revolution.

Against the odds, it seems like they have a real shot of taking Munich and then Berlin.

But overnight, things fall apart.

Nobody can find the triumvirate.

confirming what everyone but Ludendorff already suspects.

They're abandoning the cause.

And across town, stormtroopers fail to overtake the Ministry of Defense.

By morning, it's clear that Hitler's supporters are outnumbered and outmatched, with Bavarian police almost certainly on their way.

In the side room, Hitler is agitated.

Ernst sits beside him and gently suggests they still have time to escape across the border.

Hitler goes still for a moment, and Ernst thinks that for once in his life, This showman might actually be considering logic over theater.

But then, Hitler shakes his head and announces he'll die for this cause.

The march will continue as planned.

Ernst thinks of Helena and Egon, then forces a thin smile.

By late morning, a horde of 2,000 stormtroopers march down the street, creating a wall of grey.

They chant in the way of bayonets and pistols, making their way to the center of Munich.

Ernst follows closely behind Hitler, who marches beside Ludendorff and a few other members of the inner circle.

They soon come up against a police blockade, but it's clear the cops aren't expecting a horde this large.

They stand down, and the revolutionaries make it through the blockade unscathed.

But then, they turn a corner and find a second blockade, this one with far more officers than the last.

Hitler stops, and the mob halts behind him.

The police call for the stormtroopers to disperse.

Everything in Ernst wants to flee, to go home to Helena and Egon.

He silently begs Adolf to come to his senses and leave.

But common sense has never been Hitler's strong suit.

Hitler launches into another speech, antagonizing the police.

He says that he and his men are the rightful leaders of Germany.

He marches back and forth, rallying the crowd.

Ernst feels a rising panic as the police close ranks.

They raise their guns in warning.

Suddenly, Guns are out on both sides, aimed to shoot, and he's right in the middle.

A gunshot rings out, then all hell breaks loose.

Ernst dives into the nearest alley as dozens of pistols fire.

In the melee, he can see Hitler, arm in arm with Ludendorff and another stormtrooper.

The trooper is shot and falls, yanking Hitler down with him.

Hitler smashes his elbow into the cobblestone street and slumps to the ground, his arms splayed at an unnatural angle.

Ernst can tell his shoulder is dislocated, caught beneath the body of the fallen stormtrooper.

A bullet ricochets off the wall wall by Erndst's face and he ducks.

By the time he looks up again, Hitler is gone.

Blood coats the street.

Ludendorff is marching towards the police barricade, clearly ready to die for his cause.

The air is filled with screams and the sickening crunch of bodies hitting the stone street.

Ernd scans the crowd for Hitler again and finds him, being thrown into his car on the other side of the street.

It's all the encouragement Ernst needs.

If Hitler can run, so can he.

He takes off down the the alley and cuts across a side street, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the skirmish.

He knows he can't go to Helena and Egan now, his presence puts them in danger.

He has to lay low and decides to take his own advice and flee to Austria.

He'll call Helena the moment he's safe.

Then he'll find a way to get in touch with the other party members to assess the damage and count their dead.

It's the night of November 9th, 1923, and Helena Humfstengel sits at her dinner table with her young son Egon, nervously glancing out the window.

Ever since Helena got word of the failed coup, she's been sick with worry.

It's been more than 24 hours since the skirmish.

Four police officers and 16 party members are dead, and she has no idea whether Ernst is one of them.

Helena tries to smile as she eats dinner with Egon, who's learning to feed himself and making a mess of his potatoes.

She glances at the telephone in the sitting room across the hallway, willing it to ring.

She just needs to know her husband is safe.

For a moment, she regrets ever leaving New York, but she pushes that thought from her mind.

She and her family were always outsiders there, just for being German.

And now, after almost two years of funding the Nazi movement, they'd be run out of town.

They do not have a home to go back to.

They've made their bed.

She will find a way for them to lie in it.

Helena hears a knock at the front door, and she bolts out of her chair.

She races into the foyer, praying it's Ernst, that maybe he lost his house keys somewhere between Munich and the villa.

She throws open the door.

It's not Ernst.

It's Adolf Hitler.

He's deathly pale and cradling his arm.

His hair is matted with sweat and he's caked in mud.

He looks pathetic.

Beside him is a man Helena's never seen before, carrying a doctor's bag.

The man says he's a physician.

They just need a safe place to treat Adolf's arm.

She asks if Ernst is okay.

Hitler says he doesn't know, but he didn't see him among the fallen.

It's good enough for Helena.

She lets the men inside.

She leads them to an upstairs bedroom and calls for a maid to make tea.

Then she rushes back downstairs to grab Egon to entertain him while the doctor tends to Adolph upstairs.

She can hear Adolph moaning from the bedroom.

Then she hears a pop and Adolph screams.

She's pretty sure the doctor just tried to force his arm back into its socket.

The maid appears in the sitting room with the tray of tea and Helena points her upstairs.

She follows the maid into the spare bedroom to find Adolph propped up in bed, his arm in a sling.

He somehow looks worse than he did a few minutes ago.

a sickly shade of puce.

Helena tells him to get some rest.

In the morning they'll figure out what to do next.

Hitler gives her a charming smile as she closes the bedroom door.

Hitler spends the next two days feverish in bed.

Helena passes the time in a nervous daze, preoccupied by her thoughts on Ernst and worried about the danger that might follow her unexpected house guest.

On the evening of November 11th, just before dinner, Helena is startled out of her trance when the phone rings.

She picks it up, praying it's Ernst.

Instead, it's her mother-in-law.

Police are at her house down the road searching for Adolf Hitler.

They're combing the countryside.

They're already on their way to the villa.

Helena almost chokes.

She paces the sitting room for a moment, debating what to do.

Hitler is a friend, yes, but he's also a hostile, unpredictable man.

There's no telling what he'd do when his back's against the wall.

She has to seriously consider whether he would hurt her or Egon.

No, she decides.

Not her and never Egon.

She summons her courage and races upstairs to the spare bedroom.

She can hear Adolf moving around inside.

She opens the door to find him in a frenzy.

He's pacing the room, rummaging through drawers in the closets.

Helena's heart skips when she sees Hitler's pistol on the writing desk.

He looks up when Helena enters the room, a manic expression on his face.

She tells him the police are on their way.

They know how close he is to the family.

It was only a matter of time before they came looking here.

Adolph's eyes go wild.

He runs his hand through his hair, muttering to himself.

He looks out the window and sees the cop cars barreling down the road.

Helena says if he leaves now, he can make it to the woods.

The cops will have dogs.

They'll find him.

They're going to take him to prison.

Adolf kicks a drawer closed and yells, his eyes tearing up.

This can't happen, he says.

They're going to hang him or let him rot in prison.

He can't die in there.

Helena tries to calm him.

She says they'll work something out.

They always do.

They'll find a way.

But Hitler's not looking at her.

His eyes land on the pistol on the writing desk.

Helena lunges for it, but Hitler's faster.

He grabs the pistol and Helena screams.

He waves it around, promising that this is the end for him.

Helena begs him to stop.

Hitler lets out an agonizing moan, like a man whose entire world is crashing down around him.

Helena can't let it end like this.

Her family has risked everything for this movement.

If Hitler dies, it's over.

They're ruined in Germany.

They're no longer welcome back in New York.

Her family will have nothing.

Outside, she can hear the police cars pull into the driveway.

Car doors slam and dogs bark.

Men come thundering up the walk.

A while back, Ernst taught Helena a jiu-jitsu move to wrestle a pistol out of someone's hand.

She runs to Adolf and wraps her hand around the gun, then rips it away from him.

He's too weak and hairied to fight her.

She takes a step back but holds his gaze, even as he sobs that there's no point in going on.

Softly, she tells him he's wrong.

The movement must go on.

If he's half the man she thinks he is, he won't abandon his country now.

They still have to save Germany together.

She promises everything will fall into place.

Downstairs, police pound on the front door.

Adolf glances toward the hallway, terrified.

Helena begs for him to hand hand over the pistol.

She promises it will be okay.

Hitler meets her eyes again.

Slowly, he steals himself and nods.

Helena tells him to get ready.

She grabs the pistol and hurries from the room.

She ditches the pistol in a cabinet downstairs, then races to the front door.

She thinks she might be sick.

The stress of the last few days has singed her every nerve.

She opens the front door in a haze and barely registers the police who compiling into her home.

Officers run up the stairs.

She hears Adolf launch into a speech as they burst into the spare bedroom about how they have no right to arrest him, how their government has no authority.

Helena exhales.

He's back to his old self.

Months later, in the spring of 1924, Ernst arrives at Landsberg prison in Germany, carrying Egon with him.

They've come to see Egon's godfather.

He finds Adolf in a cell which is surprisingly idyllic.

Adolf has a clean, comfortable bed and a window with a nature view.

He's bent over a writing desk, scribbling furiously on a pad of paper, surrounded by flowers and candies sent to him by his supporters.

It turned out, Hitler's arrest was the best thing for his movement.

His trial was heavily publicized, newspapers wrote about him, his coup attempt and his political beliefs.

And many Germans who had never heard of Adolf Hitler suddenly liked what he had to say.

By the time of his sentencing on April 1st, Hitler was a celebrity, and maybe because of his newfound popularity, he was only given five years in prison, eligible for parole in nine months.

Adolf puts down his pen and stands to greet Ernst and Egon.

Ernst can tell he's gained a little weight from all the treats that have been pouring in.

He asks if Adolf ever gets outside to exercise, but Adolf scoffs and says he can't fraternize with his men out there.

He needs to be seen as something more.

Ernst smiles to himself, almost heartened to find Adolf being eccentric as ever.

He's also glad to see that Adolf is writing.

Ernst knows he's working on his political treatise.

Ernst promised to help publish it when it's done.

He assures Adolf he won't be in prison long.

After only nine months, Adolf was paroled, barely a slap on the wrist after trying to overthrow the government.

And when Adolf was released, Ernst helped publish his political treatise titled, My Struggle, or in German, Mein Kampf.

The book helped spread Hitler's racist and nationalist ideology across Germany.

Over the next 10 years, his party gained momentum and found legitimacy on a national stage.

They built a coalition with other right-wing parties, with Hitler at the center of the movement.

This was a key part of Hitler's plan to consolidate power.

This is what his coup attempt and his light prison sentence taught him: that it's easier to gain power through legal means than through revolution.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.

The Hofstangles were by Hitler's side through all of it, until 1935 when Hitler, who now had dictatorial powers over Germany, began ramping up his nationalist policies, reclaiming Germany for quote-unquote real Germans.

This included banning religious organizations he disagreed with, revoking Jewish citizenship, and slowly pushing Ernst out of the inner circle.

Ernst had spent so much time in America growing up that he was no longer considered a real German.

And being from Long Island, Helena was American through and through.

Over the next year, Hitler distanced himself from the Hampstangles.

His inner circle treated Ernst with the same suspicion that he left New York to escape.

Helena saw the writing on the wall, and in 1936, she left Ernst and Germany to move home to Long Island.

Ernst clung to Hitler for another year before he and Egon were forced to flee the country in 1937 after a fallout with Hitler's propagandist, Joseph Goebbels.

He and Helena learned the hard way that Hitler saw them, the trendy, wealthy couple from New York, the same way he saw other outsiders, as power-hungry, trying to seize control of Germany from actual Germans.

Ernst eventually ended up back in the United States and even helped President Franklin D.

Roosevelt's administration develop a psychological profile of Hitler, though it didn't end up being very useful.

Egan later joined the United States Army.

He felt like it was his duty to try and make up for his parents' mistakes, especially because neither Helena nor Ernst ever seemed to own up to the part they played in Hitler's rise to power.

Their affluence directly funded his movement.

They supported him.

And perhaps most crucially, because Helena prevented him from taking his own life, an estimated 70 to 85 million people died in gas chambers, on battlefields, of starvation, or as casualties of war.

And we are left to think, what may have happened had she not taken that gun out of Adolf Hitler's hand.

From Balin Studios, this is a twist of history.

A quick note about our stories.

They're all heavily researched, but some details and scenes are dramatized.

A Twist of History is hosted by me, Joel Blackwell.

Executive produced by Mr.

Bollin and Zach Levin.

Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Perry Kroll.

This episode was written by Aaron Lam.

Story editing by Luke Baratz and Aaron Lamb.

Sound design and audio mixing by Colin Lester Fleming.

Post-production supervision by Jeremy Bohm and Cole Lacasio.

Research and fact-checking by Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Evan Beamer, Alex Paul, Patricia Nicole Florentino, Calvin Riley-Holgate, Matt Gilligan.

Production coordination by Samantha Collins and Avery Siegel.

Artwork by Jessica Clogston Kiner and Robin Vane.

Thank you for listening to A Twist of History.