Franklin Roosevelt, Ernst 'Putzi' Hanfstaengl and the 'S-Project', June 1924-June 1944

Between June 1942 and September 1944, Ernst ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengl was employed by the Roosevelt administration as an intelligence analyst and psychological warfare adviser. This article not only explores the President's exact motivations for bringing a former confidant of Hitler to Washington in the midst of war, but also uses this curious episode to highlight some broader, and frequently neglected, themes of American wartime diplomacy, including: Roosevelt's unconventional and idiosyncratic attitude towards intelligence material, the President's belief in the efficacy of psychological warfare, and the often strained relations between the administration and the British embassy in Washington on matters relating to the German problem.