The Harvard-Hitler-Sousa Connection

[Steelhead]

At last, the Harvard--Hitler--Souza Nexus:

"It was on another occasion, at the house of Heinrich Hoffman, his
photographer friend, that I started playing some of the football marches I
had picked up at Harvard.  I explained to Hitler all the business about
cheer leaders and marches, counter-marches and deliberate whipping up of
hysterical enthusiasm.  I told him about the thousands of spectators being
made to roar 'Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, rah, rah, rah!' in unison and of
the hypnotic effect of this sort of thing.  I played him some of the Sousa
marches and then my own Fa-la-rah, to show how it could be done by adapting
German tunes, and gave them all that bouyant beat so characteristic of
American brass-band music.  I had Hitler fairly shouting with enthusiasm.
"That is it, Hanfstaengl, that is what we need for the movement,
marvellous," and he pranced up and down the room like a drum majorette.
After that he had the S.A. band practising the same thing.  I even wrote a
dozen marches or so myself over the course of the years, including the one
that was played by the brown-shirt columns as they marched through the
Brandenburger Tor on the day he took over power.  Rah, rah, rah! became
Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil! but that is the origin of it and I suppose I must
take my share of the blame."

This is from H.E.. Hanfstaengl's amusing memoir of a bandleader's life
under the Third Reich.