Hustling Hitler - The Jewish Vaudevillian Who Fooled the Fuhrer

Blue Rider Press / Penguin Random House, New York, 2016. Good secondhand condition.

All his life, journalist Walter Shapiro assumed that the outlandish stories about his great-uncle Freeman were exaggerated family lore; some cockamamie Jewish revenge fantasies dreamt up to entertain the kids and venerate their larger-than-life relative. Only when he started researching Freeman Bernstein?s life did he realize that his family was actually holding back - the man had enough stories, vocations, and IOUs to fill a dozen lifetimes. Freeman was many people: a vaudeville manager, boxing promoter, stock swindler, card shark and self-proclaimed ?Jade King of China.? But his greatest title, perhaps the only man who can claim such infamy, was as The Man Who Hustled Hitler. Told with cinematic verve and hilarious perspective, Hustling Hitler is Shapiro?s incredible investigation into the man behind the myth. By reconstructing his great-uncle?s remarkable career, Shapiro has transformed Freeman Bernstein from a barely there footnote in history to the larger-than-life, eternal hustler who forever changed it....