Hitlers closest friends expose chilling truth of how monster charmed them before unleashing evil

Fixing her with his penetrating blue eyes, he dropped to his knees and lay his head in her lap. To Helene Hanfstaengl he was a charming, charismatic young man. She was unaware that she was gazing into the face of pure evil. Helene recalls: Oh, he could lay it on, he really could. I was sitting on the sofa and he sank to his knees, put his head in my lap and said, Oh, if I only had someone to look after me. And I said, Why dont you find a lovely wife and marry?

Adolf Hitlers reply was: I can never marry because my life is dedicated to my country. This startling revelation comes in a new Channel 4 series, Dictator: The Hitler Interviews, which is available to watch and stream at 9pm on Saturday 1 August. The three-part series features archive footage from Hitlers loyal supporters - put together as a documentary film for the first time.

Their interviews give a valuable insight into Hitler the man, and how he manipulated people into supporting his murderous plans. New York-born Helene Hanfstaengi was the wife of Ernst Putzi Hanfstaengl, a Harvard-educated German-American businessman, who became an early confidante, financial backer, and the foreign press chief for the Fuhrer. He played the piano to soothe the dictator and helped shape the early Nazi public image.

Putzi said of their first encounter, soon after Hitler became Nazi Party leader in 1921: When I heard this man for the first time in a very noisy meeting, I absolutely felt myself irresistibly drawn to him. Praising his gift for oratory, he added: He crushed any man with his voice.

Putzis memoir, Hitler: The Missing Years, claims the dictator was in love with his New York-born wife. Helene said: In a way he was. I mean, in as far as he was able to be in love with anyone. He had big blue eyes and he used them. And then he would have a terrifically Austrian way of hand-kissing and so on.

His unshakeable self-belief was also mesmerising. Helene says: He was absolutely convinced about himself. He couldnt stand anybody who wanted to talk. He was the one who talked, the others listened.

By 1923, Hitler was ambitious to make the Nazis a powerful force. Like many Germans, defeat in the First World War had radicalised him. Someone who knew him differently was Elisabeth Popp. Shed been eight in May 1913, when an impoverished Austrian named Adolf Hitler rented a room in her familys Munich flat. Because he spent his nights quietly reading and struggled for money, her father allowed him to stay without raising the rent.

And, after Hitler rose to power and her father died, he provided financial assistance to the Popp family through royalties from Mein Kampf. Elisabeth said: Losing the war shook him up. It was terrible. So many Germans had been so brave. And that made him harder. Of embittered Hitlers hatred for the Jews, she added: This wasnt just a political thing, it was something personal It began as personal and then he built it up into a theory.

Winifred Wagner, daughter-in-law of the German composer Richard Wagner, was once one of Hitlers closest confidantes. She joined the Nazi Party in 1923 - the year she met Hitler - and, breaking her silence about him in 1975, she remained loyal to the dictator until her death in 1980, despite undergoing a denazification programme.

Winifred said of Hitler: After the war we old Nazis invented a code name for him since we couldnt talk about him in public. We called him U-S-A - Unser Seliger Adolf Our Blessed Adolf. At the tribunal hearing, they thought I was crazy. I said, Whats this got to do with politics? The bond between us was a special and private one based on our reverence and love for Richard Wagner.

Of her first meeting with Hitler, she said: I must confess, he left a deep impression on me straight away. His personality and his eyes were compelling, very blue, large and expressive. He often dropped by on his way between Munich and Berlin. He took every opportunity to see us. Mostly he came here alone, and often I fetched him myself. I sat at the wheel with him next to me, which he found strange at first.

"And hed always shout, Look out, woman driver! But sometimes he complimented me on my driving skills. He was simplyhow shall I put ita fascinating and interesting person.

But Helenes story is the most chilling. In November 1923, Hitler, Putzi and the Nazis tried to overthrow the left-wing government - staging a violent insurrection in a Munich beer hall. The revolt was put down, but Hitler became a wanted man.

Nursing a broken collarbone, he fled to Putzi and Helenes home, where she stopped him from shooting himself. Putzi said: Police surrounded the whole house. The game was up and out comes the revolver. He said, oh, Ill be damned if I go and surrender, Ill make it end.

Helene interjected: I just went up and took it away from him, without any trouble at all. I shouted at him, I said, what do you think youre doing? After all, your ideas of saving the country and you take your life and leave all your workers behind? Theyre looking for you to carry on.

Had he killed himself, the lives of 6 million Jews, slaughtered in the Holocaust, would have been spared. She and Pitzi thought by saving Hitler - who spent just nine months in jail for the attempted coup - they were saving Germany, Pitzi said: I tried to save the man who appeared to me as the one saviour.

The couple were not alone. In July 1932, 13 million Germans voted for Hitler, who had campaigned on a promise to dismantle democracy and install himself as dictator. Meanwhile, during his prison spell, Winifred Wagner made sure he was looked after.

She said: For Christmas, I organised a collection for him. The local Nazis brought their Christmas gifts here, I packed them up and sent them to Landsberg prison. Hitler asked for writing paper. She continued: I sent him heaps of writing paper. Now Im accused of having supplied the paper for Mein Kampf! In other words, Im indirectly to blame for Mein Kampf.

Rather than stand trial for crimes including the Holocaust, the murder of Romani people, those with disabilities, the murder of Soviet civilians and the starvation and execution of Soviet prisoners of war - more than 50% died in captivity - Hitler died by suicide in April 1945.

Many top Nazi officials were prosecuted at the Nuremberg Trials. Baldur von Schirach, who led the Hitler Youth and spent 20 years behind bars for crimes against humanity, still saw Hitler as a twisted genius.

Describing him, he said: A man without measure, a man with great gifts, a man who in some ways could be considered a genius. But because he had no sense of measure, he could not succeed. I do not know how else I could make a sort of summary of this fabulous monster.

As dictators like Putin in Russia and King Jong Un in North Korea again take hold around the world, people should be mindful of Putzis warning from history. While Hitler was, at first, democratically elected, he said: He starts his revolution and on it went. Not only was Hitler on the wrong train, he said: It went faster and faster and faster, so nobody could jump off.

*Dictator: The Hitler Interviews is available to watch and stream on Channel 4 at 9pm on Saturday 1 August.

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