Word: reunion
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...spin he placed on his findings that appears shaky. Central to his claims is the tale of Ernst “Putzi” F.S. Hanfstaengl, a popular member of the Harvard Class of 1909 who, when he returned as a class officer at his 25th reunion in 1934, was a chief Nazi press officer and personal acquaintance of Adolf Hitler. Norwood argued that by inviting the prominent Nazi sympathizer to an official event, Harvard missed a chance to criticize Hitler’s regime and ignored reports of Jewish persecution trickling in from across the Atlantic...
Hanfstaengl traveled to Europe after World War I. “I returned to Germany, finding the country ‘flourishing’ under the blessings of the Versailles treaty,” he wrote in his reunion class book. “A year later I ran into the man who has saved Germany and civilization—Adolf Hitler...
When Hanfstaengl’s 25th class reunion approached, he was invited by class marshal Elliott Carr Cutler, Class of 1909, to act as a vice marshal at the reunion. His reputation as a consummate Ivy Leaguer superseded concerns about anti-Semitism among students and faculty...
Harvard administrators initially responded with a shrug: the decision to offer the position was made by the independent reunion committee—it was out of their hands...
...arrival in New York was marked by angry encounters with over 1,500 anti-Nazi demonstrators. In Cambridge, anxious state troopers assigned him a security detail for the course of reunion week. Nevertheless, Putzi insisted on attending several receptions at the homes of prominent alumni, including a tea party at Conant’s residence. The president later wrote in his autobiography that his response to Hanfstaengl was “cold; I did not return the greetings...