In The Garden Of Beasts

Erik Larson, “In The Garden Of Beasts: A story of Ambasador Dodd and his family in Berlin 1933-7” Crown, 2011, 422 pp

Erik Larson is also the author of Issac's Storm, The Devil in the White City and Thunderstruck

Roosevelt had a difficult time finding a qualified candidate in March 1933 who would accept appointment as ambassador to Germany. Finally William Dodd, a professor at the University of Chicago who spoke German and received his graduate degree in Germany accepted. Dodd took along his wife as well as his adult children, Martha and Bill. Roosevelt asked that Dodd be a model of American values and address anti-Semitism, but not at an official level.

Larson chronicles Ambassador Dodd’s four years in Germany beginning in 1933 when Hitler becomes Chancellor. The book also follows the exploits of Dodd’s 24-year-old, recently divorced, daughter, Martha, and her many affairs—including one with the first head of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels and another with a Russian NKVD secret agent.
I recommend this book for those with an unquenched appetite for understanding the Third Reich. I have read quite a bit about the subject and am still at somewhat of a loss about how this all could happen. Part of the answer seems to be the absence of a free press and the ineffectual army. In 1933, the army was only one-tenth the size of Hitler’s personal SS and SA forces. The depression and resulting unemployment provided a fertile ground for Hitler’s economic military ‘stimulus’ plan.

The State Department finally became fed up with Dodd as he did not spend sufficient time working on getting Germany to pay back its debt to American creditors. They did not want to hear about the anti-Semitism, the ruthless laws being passed, nor about the hundreds assassinated in “the night of the long knives”. He was asked to resign in 1937. The book does not portray the State Department in a very flattering light.

The book is thoroughly documented.