In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson Buy This Book Now

Suzanne
Rating:


Review
This was a hard book to read.  The true story of America’s first ambassador to Nazi Germany in 1933 intrigued me enough to pick up the book.  Professor William Dodd was our ambassador, and he took his wife and grown son and daughter with him to Berlin.  I had no idea that so much brutality and violence was taking place in Germany that far before the war, and you know how hindsight is: looking back, it’s very difficult to understand how people could turn a blind eye to such things. At first Dodd didn’t believe Hitler’s violent regime could last in civilized 20^th century Europe, and the few people who were sounding the alarm were considered hysterical.  His naïve daughter Martha actually romanticized Hitler’s men for quite some time, in spite of hearing about and witnessing some horrible acts.  Martha plays as big a role in the story as William does, due to her many affairs with top men throughout the ranks of the German military government and the diplomatic corps.  Most of the story takes place in their first year there, between 1933 and 1934. It wraps up a couple years later when Hitler assumed total power by executing hundreds of opponents. By then Dodd had seen the truth about what was happening and what was going to happen, but very few people wanted to hear it.  The history of how so many people could be aware of atrocities being committed and not protest is interesting in one sense, but quite depressing in another.

Best Line:
“Looking back on it all is like seeing someone you love go mad…” (pg. 107)

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Kim
Rating:


Review
In 1933, newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt needed a US ambassador in Germany, as the post had been vacant for several months. He chose historian, author, professor and current chairman of the history department at the University of Chicago William E. Dodd, who was 64 years old at the time. Dodd, along with his wife, Mattie, and adult children Martha and Bill relocated to Berlin where Dodd’s new assignment would be anything like a walk in the park. He constantly battled US state department officials who disagreed with President Roosevelt’s choice for an ambassador, as many thought that Dodd was clearly in over his head and not the right man for the job. Germany was going through many changes under the leadership of its new chancellor, Adolf Hitler, and the country was rife with volatility. Adding to Dodd’s story is daughter Martha, who was young, and quite the social butterfly, and she also kept excellent written accounts of her time in Germany, just like her dad. Martha spent most of her time with friends and lovers, of which she had many of both, so to read about two people in the same family having absolute contrasting experiences during Hitler’s rise to power was fascinating to say the least.  I especially liked the few pictures that are included in the book, though I was horrified by one of Hitler and still do not understand what the message of the picture was supposed to be. I enjoyed the Notes section of this book immensely, and read a quote about a skunk that was priceless. Mr. Larson is an incredible writer, and I’m a huge fan of his. Though this book was not quite the page-turner I found with Devil in the White City, I am still glad I read it. 

Best Line:
“In the end, Dodd proved to be exactly what Roosevelt had wanted, a lone beacon of American freedom and hope in a land of gathering darkness.”