In the Garden of Beasts

My latest book from the library is In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson. Here are a few of the blurbs at the Amazon page ...

"By far his best and most enthralling work of novelistic history….Powerful, poignant…a transportingly true story." - The New York Times

"Tells a fascinating story brilliantly well." - Financial Times

"Highly compelling...Larson brings Berlin roaring to life in all its glamour and horror...a welcome new chapter in the vast canon of World War II." - Christian Science Monitor

"Terrific." - Los Angeles Times

“A stunning work of history.” - Newsweek

This non-fiction book is about the time spent by American Ambassador to Germany William Dodd (and his family) in Berlin during the rise of the Third Reich (1933 -). I'm just a few disks into the audio version, but I'm finding it very interesting, if disturbing - it reminds me of the film Cabaret which was set in the Berlin of just two years earlier (1931). It's appalling to read about the taken-for-granted anti-Semitism that tainted the US government's decisions on how to treat Germany at this time, and on the personal level, one of the creepier elements of the story is Dodd's daughter's behavior - thought to be beautiful and befriended by notables like Carl Sandburg, she had sexual relationships with the head of the Gestapo and a Soviet diplomat who recruited her to spy for the KGB ... so far I find her an self-absorbed dope and though I've never read Sandburg, if his letters to her are any example of his style, I'm glad I've missed him. I think the book is really worth a read, though its portrait of human nature is chilling.

Here's a bit from a review of the book in the L.A. Times ....

Book review: 'In the Garden of Beasts'
by Jeff Bailey

As the events leading up to World War II go, Franklin Roosevelt's 1933 appointment of a naïve history professor as ambassador to Germany — and the professor's decision to take his adventurous adult daughter with him — rank pretty low in importance. But in these lives, Erik Larson, author of "The Devil in the White City," finds a terrific storytelling vehicle, as William E. Dodd and his daughter, Martha, are initially taken with Adolf Hitler and his reinvigoration of Germany, and then slowly come to realize that nothing would stop Hitler from waging war and seeking to wipe out Europe's Jews .........

The Dodds initially thought that Hitler would either be deposed as Germany came to its senses or that he would moderate his behavior. They refused to believe more experienced diplomats and journalists in Berlin who warned of the regime's brutality. In a letter to Roosevelt, Dodd said he disapproved of Hitler's treatment of Jews, but added, "I believe a people has a right to govern itself and that other peoples must exercise patience even when cruelties and injustices are done. Give men a chance to try their schemes."

Little by little, the Dodds' view changed. Brutal attacks on visiting Americans by Hitler's storm troopers, the growing persecution of Jews, and finally the frightening June 1934 purge, known as the Night of the Long Knives, in which Hitler had hundreds of government officials murdered, awakened them. Just a few months earlier, Dodd had met with Hitler, who became enraged on the topic of Jews. "Damn the Jews," he'd told Dodd, blaming them for any troubles between the U.S. and Germany. "If they continue their activity, we shall make a complete end to all of them in this country."

Dodd became strongly anti-Hitler, speaking out against the regime and warning of war ahead. His remarks angered his State Department bosses, who legitimately wondered how an ambassador not on speaking terms with his host government could be effective. Recognizing his loss of influence, Dodd mulled quitting but didn't want to give his enemies the satisfaction. Instead, he was sacked, Roosevelt finally bowing to State Department demands to make a change .........

Berlin's Tiergarten (garden of beasts) ...