Useful idiots: the Hohenzollerns and Hitler*

Hitler needed the support of the Hohenzollern family on a national and an international level. While the national level has been researched in some detail, we do not have much information about the international aspect. This article shows what foreign connections the Hohenzollerns had and why they made them available to Hitler. Private correspondence in the papers of three Americans offers new insights. Resumption of the throne was a driving force for the Hohenzollerns who hoped to copy Mussolini’s arrangement with the Italian monarchy. But the family were not just opportunists. They shared many beliefs with the National Socialists: anti-Semitism, anti-parliamentarism and anti-communism. They also greatly admired Hitler’s wars of conquest. For the National Socialists, the Hohenzollerns’ eagerness to support them was welcome propaganda.