In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
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51 Dodd partly embraced Crane’s notion: Dodd to Crane, Sept. 16, 1933, Box 40, W. E. Dodd Papers.
52 “Let Hitler have his way.”: Dodd, Diary, 11.
53 A dozen or so reporters: Ibid., 11.
54 By this point he had begun: Ibid., 7.
55 “a disproportionate amount of sadness”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 17.
Chapter 5: First Night
1 Martha continued to cry: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 17–18.
2 She saw Hitler as “a clown”: Ibid., 10.
3 As a student at the University of Chicago: Ibid., 5.
4 “I was slightly anti-Semitic”: Ibid., 5.
5 One poll found: Breitman and Kraut, 88.
6 A poll taken decades in the future: Anti-Defamation League, 2009, ADL.org.
7 “an enchantress”: Vanden Heuvel, 225.
8 “The personality is all there”: Sandburg, Box 63, W. E. Dodd Papers.
9 “give way to every beckoning”: Ibid.
10 “find out what this man Hitler”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 16–17.
11 Thornton Wilder also offered: Wilder to Martha, n.d., Box 63, W. E. Dodd Papers.
In one letter, dated Sept. 15, 1933, Wilder wrote, “I can see the plane rides”—here an apparent reference to the airborne courtship of her by Ernst Udet, World War I flying ace and aerial adventurer—“and the tea dances and the movie-stars; and the brisk (soon autumnal) stroll in the most autumnal of all great parks. But I cannot see what you’re like when you’re alone—or alone just with the family—or alone with the typewriter. Your letters are so vivacious that they deafen my mind’s eye to all this other.”
He opens his letters to her, variously, with “Dear Marthy,” “Dear Handsome,” “Dear Marthy-la-Belle.”
“We’re cusses,” he wrote in April 1935, “both of us, preposterous exasperating cusses and were meant to be friends.”
12 Martha kept a picture: Brysac, 142.
13 “half a dozen or more”: Wise, Servant, 191–92.
14 “He was most friendly”: Ibid.
15 “One cannot write the whole truth”: Ibid.
16 “unfair at many points”: Dodd, Diary, 241.
17 His daughter, Martha: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 12.
18 He told a friend: Bailey, 150.
19 Dodd had assumed: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 20.
20 Meanwhile, Dodd fielded questions: Ibid., 20; Dodd, Diary, 12.
21 He was stiff and arrogant: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 20–21.
22 “very choleric temperament”: Messersmith, “Some Observations on the appointment of Dr. William Dodd, as Ambassador to Berlin,” unpublished memoir, 8, Messersmith Papers.
23 “clipped, polite, and definitely condescending”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 20.
24 “the like of which”: Ibid., 21.
25 Mrs. Dodd—Mattie: Ibid., 21.
26 “a dry, drawling, peppery man”: Breitman and Kraut, 40.
27 “I liked Dodd”: Messersmith, “Some Observations on the appointment of Dr. William Dodd, as Ambassador to Berlin,” unpublished memoir, 3, Messersmith Papers.
28 “a perfect example”: Fromm, 121.
29 “looks like a scholar”: Ibid., 120.
30 “is clear and capable”: Brysac, 141.
31 “a woman who is seriously interested”: Ibid.
32 “I was drawn to her immediately”: Unpublished memoir, 3, Box 13, Martha Dodd Papers.
33 She found long, straight boulevards: While I ought to footnote every little nugget in this rather long paragraph, frankly the effort would be too tedious and of limited value. So allow me to refer the reader to a couple of sources that provided me with a vivid sense of old Berlin: Ladd, The Ghosts of Berlin; Friedrich, Before the Deluge; Richie, Faust’s Metropolis; Gill, A Dance Between Flames. For a quirky look at Berlin’s night life, see Gordon, Voluptuous Panic. Also I urge anyone with a yearning for still more knowledge of Berlin to visit YouTube.com and search for “Symphony of a Great City.” You’ll be delighted.
34 “The bells on the streetcars”: Kaes et al., 560–62.
35 “Oh, I thought it was burned down!”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 22.
36 “Sssh! Young lady”: Ibid., 22.
37 Greta Garbo once was a guest: Kreuder, 26.
Kreuder’s “cultural history” of the Hotel Esplanade includes a number of photographs of the hotel before and immediately after World War II, and in its current incarnation as an artifact sequestered behind a wall of glass. For more on this, please read my source essay (pp. 367–75).
38 the Imperial Suite: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 22; for specific room numbers, see letter, Hotel Esplanade to George Gordon, July 6, 1933, Box 40, W. E. Dodd Papers.
39 “that there was scarcely space”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 22.
40 “modest quarters”: Messersmith, “Some Observations on the appointment of Dr. William Dodd, as Ambassador to Berlin,” unpublished memoir, 2, Messersmith Papers.
41 The family settled in: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 22–23.
42 Later that evening: Ibid., 23–24.
43 “In the Tiergarten”: Kaes et al., 425.
44 “I am sure this was”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 23.
45 “I felt the press had badly maligned”: Ibid., 24.
PART II: HOUSE HUNTING IN THE THIRD REICH
Chapter 6: Seduction
1 “A little pudgy”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 24.
2 “the dragon from Chicago”: Schultz, “Dragon,” 113.
3 The opening of one such camp: Stackelberg and Winkle, 145. Regarding “wild” camps, KZs, and such, see Krausnick et al., 400, 410, 419;
Richie, 412; Fritzsche, 43; Fest, 115–16; Kershaw, Hubris, 462, 464; Deschner, 79. As of July 31, 1933, some 26,789 people were held in protective custody, according to Krausnick et al., 410.
4 “I didn’t believe all her stories”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 24.
5 “What a youthful, carefree”: de Jonge, 140.
6 Within days she found herself: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 24.
7 “their funny stiff dancing”: Ibid., 24.
8 “weren’t thieves”: Ibid., 25.
9 the Berliner Schnauze: Jelavich, 31.
10 “I’m not Jewish”: Grunberger, 371; de Jonge, 161; for more on Finck, see Jelavich, 236–41, 248.
11 “The sun shines”: Isherwood, Berlin Stories, 207.
It cannot be said enough that Germany’s seeming normalcy in this period was deeply seductive to outsiders. Angela Schwarz, in her article “British Visitors to National Socialist Germany,” writes that “a considerable number of British travellers concluded after a tour through the Third Reich, perhaps even one organized by the authorities, that in Germany everything was as quiet and peaceful as could be.” Schwarz, 497.
12 Gleichschaltung—meaning “coordination”: Orlow, 29; Bullock, 149; Kershaw, Hubris, 479; Hughes and Mann, 81; Gill, 238.
Engelmann, 36, offers a slightly different translation: “bringing into line.” Orlow, in his History of the Nazi Party, notes that the literal translation is “to switch equal,” a physics term that “originally denoted the coordination of different types of electrical current.” Orlow, 29.
13 “self-coordination”: Kershaw, Hubris, 481; Gisevius, 96; Gellately, Gestapo, 11, 137.
14 Gerda Laufer: Gellately, Gestapo, 97.
15 coined by a post office clerk: Crankshaw, 15.
16 One study of Nazi records: Cited in Gellately, Gestapo, 146.
17 In October 1933: Gellately, Gestapo, 137–38.
18 “we are living at present”: Ibid., 139.
There was nothing funny about the Gestapo, but this did not stop Berliners from quietly—very quietly—coining and trading jokes about the agency. Here’s one of them: “At the Belgian border crossing, huge numbers of rabbits appear one day and declare that they are political refugees. ‘The Gestapo wants to arrest all giraffes as enemies of the state.’—‘But you’re not giraffes!’—‘We know that, but try explaining that to the Gestapo!’ ” Evans, Power, 106.
19 only about 1 percent: Dippel, xviii; Gill, 238.
Kershaw, in his Popular Opinion and Political Dissent, presents statistics that show that 70.9 percent of Germany’s Jews lived in cities having more than 100,000 inhabitants. In Bavaria, the percentage was 49.5. “One implication of this is obvious,” he writes: “the population of large tracts of Bavaria had no, or at best minimal, contact with Jews. For very many, therefore, the Jewish Question could be of no more than abstract significance.” Kershaw, Popular Opinion, 226–27.
20 some ten thousand émigrés: Dippel, 114.
21 “Hardly anyone thought”: Zuckmayer, 320.
22 “It was easy to be reassured”: Dippel, 153.
23 The salute, he wrote: Messersmith to Hull, Aug. 8, 1933, Messersmith Papers.
24 “I felt really quite fortunate”: Ibid., 4.
25 Dodd threw him a mock salute: Martha to Thornton Wilder, Sept. 25, 1933, Wilder Papers.
26 “You remember our bicycle ride”: George Bassett Roberts to Martha, Oct. 22, 1971, Box 8, Martha Dodd Papers.
27 “You had had it”: Ibid.
28 “To my charming and lovely ex-wife”: George Bassett Roberts to Martha, n.d., Box 8, Martha Dodd Papers.
29 “I’m not at all sure”: George Bassett Roberts to Martha, Oct. 22, 1971, Box 8, Martha Dodd Papers.
30 A Harvard graduate: Conradi, 22.
Chapter 7: Hidden Conflict
1 “the most beautiful park”: Dodd to R. Walton Moore, March 22, 1936, 124.621/338, State/Decimal.
2 “A photograph of you”: Phillips to Dodd, July 31, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers.
3 “rolled in the gutter”: Martha to Thornton Wilder, Sept. 25, 1933, Wilder Papers.
4 “Gordon is an industrious career man”: Dodd, Diary, 16.
5 “come to Germany to rectify the wrongs”: Ibid., 13.
6 On his first full day in Berlin: Friedlander, 496.
7 He also learned that staff: Dodd to Hull, July 17, 1933, 124.626/95, State/Decimal.
8 The consul general now dispatched: For example, Messersmith to Hull, July 15, 1933, 125.1956/221, State/Decimal.
9 In notes for a personnel report: Dodd, Memorandum, 1933, Box 40 (1933-C), W. E. Dodd Papers.
10 “Evangelical Christian”: New York Times, July 1, 1933.
11 He also recognized: For a summary of the conflict between Hitler and Röhm, see Evans, Power, 20–26; Kershaw, Hubris, 505–7; and Wheeler-Bennett, Nemesis, 307–11.
12 admittedly homosexual: Röhm was outed when his letters to a medical researcher were made public. In one letter he wrote, “I make no secret of my inclinations,” and acknowledged that the Nazi Party had needed “to get used to this criminal peculiarity of mine.” He also wrote, “Today all women are an abomination to me, particularly those who pursue me with their love.”
Hancock, 625–29.
13 “adolescents in the great game”: Dodd to Newton Baker, Aug. 12, 1933, Box 40, W. E. Dodd Papers.
14 “These men wish to stop all Jewish persecution”: Ibid.
15 “his face,” she wrote: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 247.
16 “he was trying to train the Nazis”: Heineman, 66.
17 “He always believed”: Ibid., 82.
18 “most agreeable”: Dodd, Diary, 13.
19 “Hitler will fall into line”: Dodd to Newton Baker, Aug. 12, 1933, Box 40, W. E. Dodd Papers.
20 “It is not unlikely that [Zuckerman]”: Messersmith to Hull, Aug. 9, 1933, Messersmith Papers.
21 Messersmith added, “It is interesting to note”: Ibid., 4.
22 “It has been a favorite pastime of the SA men”: Messersmith to Hull, July 26, 1933, Messersmith Papers.
23 “inaccurate and overdrawn”: Messersmith, “Attack on Kaltenborn,” unpublished memoir, 2, Messersmith Papers.
24 “was a German by origin”: Ibid.
25 “to influence Americans coming to Germany”: Messersmith to Hull, Sept. 26, 1933, p. 1, Messersmith Papers.
26 He saw evidence of this: Ibid., 3.
27 “that if Americans in Germany”: Ibid., 3.
28 “The fact that Jews are permitted”: Ibid., 7–8.
29 “The Americans coming to Germany”: Ibid., 15.
Chapter 8: Meeting Putzi
1 She also became a regular: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 100.
2 “Everybody else in the restaurant”: Isherwood, Berlin Stories, 204.
3 “pretty, vivacious”: Shirer, Berlin Diary, 34.
4 In this new world: I was struck during my research by the extent to which my key protagonists saved the calling cards they received during their days in Berlin. Martha’s cards—scores of them—can be found in Box 1, file 2, of her papers at the Library of Congress. Armand Berard, her much-abused future lover, jotted on one of his cards, “Rang you up in vain / and came in vain.” A good friend of Martha’s, Elmina Rangabe, wrote, cryptically, “ ‘Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle,’ ” from A. E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad. She crossed out Rangabe to indicate intimacy.
5 “If you have nothing more important to do”: Ibid.
6 “a lavish and fairly drunken affair”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 25.
7 “in a sensational manner”: Ibid., 25.
8 “supremely awkward-looking”: Dalley, 156.
9 “an instinctive dislike”: Messersmith, “Dr. Hanfstaengl,” unpublished memoir, 1, Messersmith Papers.
10 “He is totally insincere”: Messersmith to Jay Pierrepont Moffat, June 13, 1934, Messersmith Papers.
11 “went out of his way to be cordial”: Reynolds, 107.
12 “You had to know Putzi”: Ibid., 207.
13 At Harvard: Hanfstaengl, 27, 32; Conradi, 20.
14 One story held that Hanfstaengl: Conradi, 21.
15 “Uncle Dolf”: Ibid., 46.
Egon Hanfstaengl told the Sunday Telegraph of London (Feb. 27, 2005) that Hitler made an excellent playmate. “I loved him. He was the most imaginative playmate a child could wish for. My favourite game with him was trains. He would go on his hands and knees, and pretend to be a tunnel or a viaduct. I was the steam engine going on the track underneath him. He would then do all the noises of the steam train.”
16 “so blatantly proclaiming his charm”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 26.
17 “of almost frightening dimensions”: Fromm, 90.
18 “He had a soft, ingratiating manner”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 25–26.
19 “He could exhaust anyone”: Ibid., 26
20 “He was a modest little southern history professor”: Hanfstaengl, 214.
21 “Papa” Dodd: Conradi, 121.
22 “The best thing about Dodd”: Hanfstaengl, 214.
Chapter 9: Death Is Death
1 One of his foremost sources: Mowrer, Triumph, 218.
2 Putzi Hanfstaengl tried to undermine: Ibid., 219.
3 “I was inclined to think him Jewish”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 39.
4 “To no purpose”: Mowrer, Triumph, 224.
5 “almost as vehement”: Dodd, Diary, 24.
6 Gestapo chief Rudolf Diels felt compelled: Messersmith, “Some observations on my relations with the press,” unpublished memoir, 20, Messersmith Papers.
7 “people’s righteous indignation”: Mowrer, Triumph, 225–26.
8 “one of the most difficult conversations”: Messersmith, “Some observations on my relations with the press,” unpublished memoir, 21, Messersmith Papers.
9 “If you were not being moved”: Mowrer, Journalist’s Wife, 308.
10 “never quite forgave my father”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 39.
11 “perhaps the foremost chemist”: Dodd, Diary, 17.
12 C × t = k: See “Fritz Haber,” JewishVirtualLibrary.org.
13 On a personal level: Stern, 121. Also see “Fritz Haber,” NobelPrize.org.
14 “In this profound dejection”: Ibid., 53.
15 “trembled from head to foot”: Memorandum, Sept. 14, 1933, Box 59, W. E. Dodd Papers.
17 “He wished to know the possibilities”: Ibid., 17.
18 “You know the quota is already full”: Dodd to Isador Lubin, Aug. 5, 1933, Box 41, W. E. Dodd Papers.
19 “The Ambassador appears”: D. W. MacCormack to Isador Lubin, Aug. 23, 1935, Box 41, W. E. Dodd Papers.
20 He left for England: Goran, 169, 171.
21 Zyklon B: Stern, 135.
22 “How I wish”: Stephen S. Wise to Dodd, July 28, 1933, Box 43, W. E. Dodd Papers.
23 Dodd “is being lied to”: Wise, Personal Letters, 223.
24 “the many sources of information”: Dodd to Stephen S. Wise, Aug. 1, 1933, Box 43, W. E. Dodd Papers.
25 “tell him the truth”: Wise, Personal Letters, 224.
26 “I might be recognized”: Wise, Challenging Years, 254.
27 “Briefly it may be said”: Messersmith to Hull, Aug. 24, 1933, Messersmith Papers.
28 “fundamentally, I believe”: Dodd to Roosevelt, Aug. 12, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers.
Chapter 10: Tiergartenstrasse 27a
1 Though he reviled: Dodd to William Phillips, Nov. 13, 1933, Box 42.
2 “Personally, I would rather”: Dodd to Sam D. McReynolds, Jan. 2, 1934, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers.
3 The Dodds found many properties: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 32.
4 “We have one of the best residences”: Dodd to Roosevelt, Aug. 12, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers.
5 Trees and gardens: In the course of my research I had the pleasure of interviewing Gianna Sommi Panofsky, the daughter-in-law of the Dodds’ landlord, who provided me with detailed plans for the house and photocopies of several photographs of its exterior. Sadly, she died before I completed this book.
6 “twice the size of an average New York apartment”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 33–34.
7 “entirely done in gold”: Ibid., 34.
8 “We are convinced”: Dodd to Mrs. Alfred Panofsky, undated letter, provided by Gianna Sommi Panofsky.
9 “I love going there”: Fromm, 215.
10 “second home”: Ferdinand, 253.
11 “When the servants were out of sight”: Ibid., 253.