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Books and Arts; Book Review;Americans in Nazi Germany；Without hindsight；
文藝；書評；在納粹德國的美國人；沒有事后諸葛亮；
Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power. By Andrew Nagorski.
《希特勒的國土：納粹崛起執政的美國目擊者》；安德魯·納戈爾斯基；
Some books about Nazi Germany prompt the question, “What would I have done?” Readers of “Hitlerland” may instead ask, “What would I have thought?” Andrew Nagorski has written an entertaining chronicle of the views of Americans in Germany during the interwar years until Japan attacked Pearl Harbour in 1941. What did they make of the country as it moved from the messiness of Weimar to the madness of Hitlerism?
一些關于納粹德國的書讓人發問，“我會怎么做？”《希特勒的國土》一書的讀者可能會改問，“我會怎么看?”安德魯·納戈爾斯基寫了一部有趣的編年史，內容是兩次世界大戰之間直到1941年日本襲擊珍珠港期間在德的美國人的看法。隨著德國由魏瑪王朝的雜亂無章變為希特勒主義的瘋狂，這些美國人如何解讀這個國家呢？
Germany was a popular place at the time, giving Mr Nagorski a rich cast of characters. “The world was being created here,” wrote Philip Johnson, an American architect, of pre-Nazi Berlin. Hitler’s rise brought yet more fascination. Charles Lindbergh, an American aviator, was clueless enough to be used by both the Nazis and the Americans. John F. Kennedy makes a rambunctious appearance as a university student.
當時的德國是一個受歡迎的地方，納戈爾斯基的人物陣容龐大，角色多樣。“世界正在這里被創造”，美國建筑師菲利普·約翰遜這樣寫納粹前的柏林。希特勒的崛起益發給德國帶來了更多的魅力。美國飛行員查爾斯·林德伯格太過愚笨，納粹黨人和美國人都利用了他。約翰·肯尼迪作為一名大學生外表粗獷放縱。
This book reintroduces us to Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl, a backslapping German-American graduate of Harvard, who positioned himself between Hitler and the foreign press and who fancied himself the Führer’s bridge to America itself. Hitler in turn fancied Hanfstaengl’s wife, who grabbed his gun before he could shoot himself after the failed beer hall putsch of 1923. Hanfstaengl eventually fell out of favour, and narrowly escaped being tossed out of a plane (with a parachute) over Republican-held territory in Spain. His infatuation with Hitler remained.
本書讓我們重新認識了恩斯特·普希·漢夫施滕格爾，他是德裔美國人，哈佛大學的畢業生，喜好相互吹捧，置身于希特勒和外國記者之間，自詡為元首與美國本身的橋梁。反過來，希特勒喜歡漢夫施滕格爾的妻子，1923年啤酒店暴動失敗后他開槍自殺，這位女士在他開槍前抓住了他的槍。漢夫施滕格爾最終不再受青睞，在西班牙，當飛機飛過共和黨控制的領土上空時險遭被逼跳機（背著降落傘）的命運。他對希特勒的迷戀依然存在。
Little wiser was Martha Dodd, the boy-crazy daughter of the American ambassador. She flirted with Nazism (by way of handsome Nazis), but later took a Soviet lover and became a spy.
瑪莎·多德小有聰明，她是美國大使的女兒，象男孩一樣瘋。她與納粹主義有染，方式就是跟英俊的納粹分子調情，但后來找了個蘇聯情人，并成了一名間諜。
A veteran journalist, formerly with Newsweek, Mr Nagorski seems most interested in the stories of diplomats and fellow hacks. They come off a bit better than their sightseeing countrymen, even if their early views were wide of the mark. Dorothy Thompson, celebrity journalist and wife of the novelist Sinclair Lewis, published a 1932 book called “I Saw Hitler!”. She found him to be a “Little Man” with an “actor’s face…capable of being pushed out or in”, whereas President Hindenburg appeared “cut out of rock.” Hitler’s “tragedy” she wrote, “is that he has risen too high.” He seized power a year later.
作為《新聞周刊》的前資深記者，納戈爾斯基似乎對外交官和雇傭文人的故事最感興趣。即使他們早期的觀點有些離譜，也比來觀光的同胞稍好一點。知名記者桃樂茜·湯普森是小說家辛克萊·劉易斯的妻子，她1932年出版了一本書，名為《我看到了希特勒！》。她發現希特勒是個“小個子”，有張“演員的臉……能屈能伸”，而總統興登堡卻看似“切削出的巖石”。她寫道，希特勒的“悲劇在于他爬得太高”。一年后，希特勒奪取了政權。
By 1934 Thompson’s tone had changed, and her reports made her the first journalist to be expelled by the Nazis. On her return to America she said: “Germany has gone to war already and the rest of the world does not believe it.”
到了1934年，湯普森的論調變了，她的報導讓她成為第一個被納粹驅逐出境的記者。在她返回美國時，她說：“德國已經開始備戰，而其它國家的人不予相信。”
George Messersmith, a prescient American Consul General in Berlin, “made a habit of not allowing himself to be fooled by the Nazis,” writes Mr Nagorski. “A little man has taken the measure of still smaller men,” observed Edgar Mowrer, who won the Pulitzer prize for the Chicago Daily News. By the time Hitler became Führer in 1933, his thuggery was harder to dismiss.
喬治·梅瑟史密斯是美國在柏林的總領事，頗有先見之明。納戈爾斯基寫道，喬治·梅瑟史密斯“習慣不讓自己被納粹愚弄”。為《芝加哥每日新聞報》贏得過普利策獎的埃德加·莫勒評論說，“一個小個子采取了更小人的手段。”1933年希特勒成為元首時，他的謀財害命已難遏止。
On the whole, Americans in pre-war Berlin had the wit to sense what was coming, and thus helped prepare their countrymen for “the years of bloodshed and struggle ahead”. Yet “Hitlerland” brings back to life some early delusions about Hitler’s rise that now seem unthinkable. Any reader trying to puzzle out today’s world will be unsettled by the reminder of how easy it is to get things wrong.
基本上，戰前柏林的美國人警覺到了即將發生什么，從而幫著他們的同胞為“多年的流血抗爭”提前做好準備。但是，《希特勒的國土》一書讓我們回到了生活在希特勒崛起的一些早期錯覺之中，如今看來希特勒的崛起似乎不可思議。把事情搞錯非常容易，看到作者的這一提醒，任何試圖解讀當今世界的讀者都會不安。
