In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

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In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

by Erik Larson (Goodreads Author)

3.75 of 5 stars 3.75 · rating details · 54,583 ratings · 7,590 reviews

Erik Larson has been widely acclaimed as a master of narrative non-fiction, and in his new book, the bestselling author of Devil in the White City turns his hand to a remarkable story set during Hitler’s rise to power.

The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point...more

Kindle Edition, 365 pages

Published (first published May 10th 2011)

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Aug 03, 2011 Kemper rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, non-fiction, over-there, politics, war

Picture Principal Skinner from The Simpsons and Paris Hilton going to Nazi Germany, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what this book is like.

I was split on Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City because I found the half of the book about the 1893 Chicago’s World Fair incredibly interesting but thought the other half about serial killer H.H. Holmes to be just another true crime gore fest. Then in Thunderstruck he again gave us some nice pop history with the story of Marconi and the inventi...more Picture Principal Skinner from The Simpsons and Paris Hilton going to Nazi Germany, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what this book is like.

I was split on Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City because I found the half of the book about the 1893 Chicago’s World Fair incredibly interesting but thought the other half about serial killer H.H. Holmes to be just another true crime gore fest. Then in Thunderstruck he again gave us some nice pop history with the story of Marconi and the invention of the radio, but then he stretched the inclusion of a crime story to a ridiculous exteme by trying to tie in a manhunt for a killer across the Atlantic that used early wireless.

I was hoping that In the Garden of Beasts would allow Larson to play to his strengths with a story about Nazis in the 1930s because I thought he could give a detailed look at life in Berlin as Hitler was consolidating his power, and this time he’d actually have a legitimate horror story to tell without it feeling like something just tacked on to sell books. Instead, I got a story about a couple of people who were surrounded by evil and didn’t do a helluva lot about it.

The story centers on William Dodd and his daughter Martha. Dodd was a history professor in Chicago with minor political connections and a dream of obtaining a quiet government post somewhere so he could finish writing a history of the American Civil War. When President Roosevelt couldn’t get anyone else to take the job, he asked Dodd to be the ambassador to Germany. Dodd accepted and took his wife and two grown children along with him. Like a lot of Americans, Dodd was worried about some of the stories of Nazi violence coming out at the time, but thought that Hitler might be nudged towards controlling the extreme factions since he‘d just taken over as chancellor. His interactions with the Nazi power brokers and the rise of German nationalistic fervor eventually convinced Dodd that Hitler and his people were bad news for the entire world.

Here’s where the book falls down for me. Larson got me interested in the Chicago World’s Fair because I knew nothing about it, and he made it come alive. I already know about how the Nazis came to power so the history piece of this is old news to me. While there’s some interesting slice of life details and Larson does a nice job of giving you a sense of the weird combination of paranoia, pride, terror and zeal that pervaded Germany in the 1930s, it’s really nothing I haven’t heard before. Maybe I would have been more interested if I would have found Dodd’s story more intriguing, but frankly, the ambassador seemed about as interesting as a saltine cracker to me.

Dodd comes across as a decent enough guy for his time. He did advocate policies of getting tougher with Germany when most of America was in full isolationist mode, but aside from irking the Nazis with a couple of speeches and boycotting a couple of official functions, he really didn’t do anything. (And as one of his critics of the time pointed out, an ambassador who refuses to meet with the government of the country he’s in really isn’t accomplishing much.) Dodd irritated others in America’s diplomatic service with his constant criticism of their spending and seemed more concerned with cutting costs at the embassy rather than dealing with the Germans.

The odd thing about this book is that Larson all but ignores Dodd’s wife and son in favor of giving a detailed portrayal of his daughter, Martha. Martha came along with her father as her first marriage was ending, and to put it mildly, she got around. I mean, it’s good that a woman in her time was sexually liberated enough to carry on with guys like the poet Carl Sandburg. However, once she dated the head of the Gestapo and a top Soviet spy as well as many, many others, I had the impression that Martha was less than discriminating with her affections. Hell, she even kinda went along with a half-assed scheme one of the Nazis had to try and hook her up with Hitler himself.

So this becomes the story of a mild mannered diplomat dealing with the rise of some of the most evil fucks in history, but he’s pinching pennies at the embassy instead of giving visas to every Jewish person he could find. And his daughter is a sleeping her way through Europe while at first extolling the virtues of the Nazis, then deciding that she’s kind of a communist, but in the end Martha doesn’t do much but put a smile on the face of any guy who gives her a wink and a smile.

In this case, I knew the history and only got a story about a couple of people who seem like they should have been maybe a chapter in larger history of the time and place. Dodd and Martha just didn’t impress or intrigue me enough to warrant reading a whole book about them. It’s disappointing that Larson decided to make them the center of this.(less)

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Jul 19, 2012 Lou rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, non-fiction

This story covers the Dodd family and their lives amongst the beast machine of Hitler's Nazi Germany. Rosevelt asked Dodd to become the American ambassador to Hitler's Germany. At that time Germany was in debt to America and owed loads of money and they looked like they were not going to pay so the need for the ambassador arose. Dodd and his wife agreed to the position and so they left for Berlin, he also invited his two grown children Martha and Bill. The lovely Martha appears in the story quit...more This story covers the Dodd family and their lives amongst the beast machine of Hitler's Nazi Germany. Rosevelt asked Dodd to become the American ambassador to Hitler's Germany. At that time Germany was in debt to America and owed loads of money and they looked like they were not going to pay so the need for the ambassador arose. Dodd and his wife agreed to the position and so they left for Berlin, he also invited his two grown children Martha and Bill. The lovely Martha appears in the story quite a bit as in the backdrop Hitlers rises to power and his evil spreads we follow her and her relationship with a communist Russian. Martha when she arrived in Berlin found she liked Germany and the people and commented them as being better than the Parisian, obviously this was before Hitler showed his face and colors of evil and his propaganda was widespread. Germany wanted this image wanted Americans to warm to them but as the garden was perceived to be nice the beasts were slowly going about their Arian work, as the stormtroopers developed unknown to the visitors eye a rage and a pot was brewing of turmoil and fascism. The rest is history the persecutions of Jews and all non Arian is well documented the author is trying to give us a pigeon hole on how it was for this family amongst the turmoil and documents the ambassadors interactions with Hitler's Germany. The ambassador was called eventually to Hitlers office and warned in person by Hitler that he was unhappy with Americas media view of him. The story became at times too fact based but is not an easy subject to write about he has successfully not made it solely just about the evil but also about the human struggles.

When i was searching the web for a photo of Dodd I came across interesting info.
” Evidence of continued efforts by powerful U.S. fascists to regain control of the White House is illustrated by a 1936 statement by William Dodd, the U.S. Ambassador to Germany. In a letter to Roosevelt, he stated:
“A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime…. A prominent executive of one of the largest corporations, told me point blank that he would be ready to take definite action to bring fascism into America if President Roosevelt continued his progressive policies. Certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extended aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there. Propagandists for fascist groups try to dismiss the fascist scare. We should be aware of the symptoms. When industrialists ignore laws designed for social and economic progress they will seek recourse to a fascist state when the institutions of our government compel them to comply with the provisions.”

Martha Dodd

Visit webpage for Video interview with the author.
There is also to be a movie.

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Apr 04, 2011 Jeanette rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: cultural-and-social-commentary, europe-and-british-isles, history, nonfiction, world-war-two-nonfiction, five-star-nonfiction, to-be-read-again, av

Be prepared to stay up reading into the wee hours once you get your hands on this book. It held my interest better than any novel, and it filled in all the gaps in my understanding of how Hitler was able to gain so much power so quickly, with so little opposition. Erik Larson used the detailed diaries of William E. Dodd and his daughter Martha to reconstruct "a year in the life" for Americans in Berlin from 1933 to 1934.

William Dodd had no idea what he was saying yes to when President Roosevelt...more Be prepared to stay up reading into the wee hours once you get your hands on this book. It held my interest better than any novel, and it filled in all the gaps in my understanding of how Hitler was able to gain so much power so quickly, with so little opposition. Erik Larson used the detailed diaries of William E. Dodd and his daughter Martha to reconstruct "a year in the life" for Americans in Berlin from 1933 to 1934.

William Dodd had no idea what he was saying yes to when President Roosevelt offered him the position of ambassador to Germany in 1933. Dodd had fond memories of the Germany of 40 years before, when he'd attended college in Leipzig. Upon arrival in Berlin, he and his family discovered a Germany already in the grip of terror, a mere six months after Hitler had been appointed chancellor. Storm Troopers were attacking people in the streets. Communists and liberals were already being sent to concentration camps without due process.

As ambassador, Dodd found he was required to attend diplomatic functions and rub shoulders with the monsters of the new regime. As the horrors worsened, he found this increasingly repugnant, and tried doggedly to convince those in Washington that intervention was necessary. His entreaties fell mostly on deaf ears. Dodd's bosses were more concerned about getting Germany to pay off their huge debt to America, while maintaining an isolationist position with regard to foreign conflicts.

While Dodd struggled with his diplomatic duties, his young daughter Martha was treating her time in Berlin as a lark. She dated and consorted with highly placed Nazis, including some of the most abominable of Hitler's minions. At first, she enthusiastically endorsed the Nazi agenda and its effect on the "New Germany." By the winter of 1933-34, however, she too was living in terror. This didn't seem to put much of a damper on her dating life, though, and she gained a reputation as quite a round-heeled girl.

In late June of 1934 came "The Night of the Long Knives," in which Hitler orchestrated the rapid execution of hundreds of Storm Troopers and other "enemies," some seemingly at random. That August, President Hindenburg died. Hitler quickly took control and achieved absolute power. William Dodd remained in his position as ambassador for three more years, during which American leaders continued to refuse his requests for intervention in Nazi Germany.

This book has already earned a permanent place in my home library. I can't recommend it highly enough. Great care has been taken to provide all the little things that prevent confusion and make a book easier to read and understand. I would give it six stars if I could.

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May 30, 2011 Corina rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Erik Larsen fans and/or WWII buffs

Recommended to Corina by: Mom

I didn't think you could make the rise of Hitler boring, but...this was. Ever so much. 300 pages of "But unknown to Dodd, all the rich dudes in the US hated him and were saying things like blah blah blah" and "Martha was having yet another affair" and "Everyone in Berlin seemed happy but THE ATMOSPHERE WAS TENSE" that all led up to a rather anticlimactic Night of the Long Knives. I really just didn't care for anyone in the Dodd family - Dodd himself seemed stuffy and did not, over the course of...more

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Lynn Well, I don't personally find the rise of Hitler to power boring, perhaps it was a poor word choice, because your statement about Hitler is exactly wh...more
Apr 23, 2013 08:55pm

Corina Lynn wrote: "If you read strictly for development of fascinating characters in a gripping, moving story there's lots of straight fiction out there."

Le...more
Apr 24, 2013 04:11am

Oct 30, 2012 Maureen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, nazism, non-fiction

Eric Larsen has a talent for taking a big event, like the Galveston flood of 1900 (Isaac's Storm), the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 (The Devil in the White City) , or the implementation of the transatlantic cable (Thunderstruck) and combining it with a compelling individual's story. He uses the broader context of historical events and personalizes it, so that, in effect, the parts become greater than the sum of the whole.

In his latest book, In the Garden of Beasts, Larson takes on the rise to po...more

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Mar 06, 2012 Anne rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bio-memoir, germany, wwii, usa, kindle

2 1/2 stars "It was okay." That's what two stars mean. IMO, this book is over-hyped. It has some interesting parts, like a bit of an inside view of events and people, both German and American officials and citizens. We see through their eyes how Hitler was able to take more and more power over Germany. There are parts that are interesting, like several appearances of the Jewish Bella Fromm, a popular society journalist of the day. She brought intelligence and wit into this book whenever she appe...more

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May 24, 2011 Will Byrnes rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, american-history

In 1933, William Dodd, a Chicago academic is appointed the first American ambassador to Hitler’s Germany. He enters this cauldron accompanied by his family, most particularly by his very modern daughter, Martha. Larson shows us the quickly changing Germany of 1933 through their eyes.

While this is hardly a man-on-the-strasse point of view, a look at the goings on through the experiences of a diplomat and his daughter does get a bit closer to the ground than a more removed historical overview. La...more In 1933, William Dodd, a Chicago academic is appointed the first American ambassador to Hitler’s Germany. He enters this cauldron accompanied by his family, most particularly by his very modern daughter, Martha. Larson shows us the quickly changing Germany of 1933 through their eyes.

While this is hardly a man-on-the-strasse point of view, a look at the goings on through the experiences of a diplomat and his daughter does get a bit closer to the ground than a more removed historical overview. Larson chose to deliver a one year slice of the darkening life of Nazi Germany. There is plenty in that one year to fill many books.

I was of two minds about this book. On the one hand, I read it rather quickly, which usually indicates a high level of interest. On the other hand, it did not seem all that interesting to me. Certainly there are not a lot of new revelations remaining re the Third Reich. The ambassador seemed like a mostly decent guy who tried his best under what might, at best, be called trying circumstances. His experience highlighted the cliquish, anti-Semitic, quality of the rich-boy American foreign service. ( The Pretty Good Club) Not news. The upper echelons of the Nazi Party included an assortment of mental misfits, from the lunatic-in-chief to Goering, with an ego even larger than his lavishly costumed body, to in-fighting middle-school sociopaths with armies and zero sense of morality. Again, not news. News was some of the nuance involved in why Roosevelt was disinclined to openly criticize the Nazis for their treatment of the Jews. News was the connections the ambassador’s daughter made with questionable characters.

Ambassador Dodd’s daughter, Martha, appears to have had a very lively social life. Her interactions with some of the notables allow us a look at people who were unfamiliar. Indeed, it is the secondary characters that hold the most interest here. One such who emerges from the gunsmoke is Rudolf Diels, the first head of the Gestapo. His scar-ridden face might lead one to see him as a total black hat. Turns out there was more to him than that. Martha also has an affair with a Soviet KGB agent named, of course, Boris. How much of their affection was true and how much was manipulation? Franz von Papen was Hindenberg’s man, vice-chancellor under Hitler. He delivered (or was forced to give) a famous public call for Hitler to scale back some of his atrocities in the “Marburg Speech.” No. I had never heard of it either. But it was significant for the time, and gets some well-merited attention here. Larson offers a bit of a look at the political machinations of the US consul general George Messersmith, as well.

One of the most telling scenes in the book is one in which the ambassador is told that his primary task was to see that Germany paid the banks, uber alles. The relevance to the 21st Century is unmistakable. Larson’s depiction of The Night of Long Knives was riveting, particularly the mysteriousness of it all. Who was killed? How many? Why? Contrary to the post-Nazi claim that most of the population was against Hitler, the portrait Larson paints indicates widespread popular support for the Nazi leader.

It is chilling to see the frustrations of a population which had suffered economic deprivations for so long finding a savior in a madman. There is clearly a willingness in the USA for many people to throw their support to the loudest and meanest, regardless of what is revealed almost daily about the dishonesty of such leaders. It is not surprising that there were so many in Germany who felt that their national honor could best be revived through this bombastic bully. Pay attention to what the crazies say they want to do. Whether it is Paul Ryan promising to dismantle Medicare, or Ron Paul objecting to the Civil Rights Act. Mein Kampf is pretty specific. What did they think they were getting? In the article cited at the end of this page, Larson says,

"The immediate trigger for this book was reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, but I read that also at a time when I was feeling uneasy about how things were going in this country. It troubled me that we had these reports of torture of detainees, we had people jailed at Guantanamo Bay who couldn't even talk to their lawyers and couldn't see the evidence against them — sort of fundamental bedrock civil liberties things. ... Look, I don't care what your party is. I went to public school on Long Island, and it seemed every year we were being taught that you had a right to a fair trial and a right to confront your accuser. So it's this kind of vague feeling I had in the background which was, 'What was that like to experience a real extreme version of that?' ... So it made me wonder what allows a culture to slip its moorings."

But even though there were interesting elements within the book, even though I read through it all relatively quickly, I still did not feel, by the time I had finished, that it was all that much. One of the problems with being a damn good writer is that expectations are elevated. It is tough indeed to come up to The Devil in the White City, an astonishingly good book. In the Garden of Beasts does not approach that work. While it might be interesting to see how the flowers grow in this dark garden, there is just not enough meat here to satisfy the fly-traps.

There is an outstanding NPR piece on the book at:
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/09/1359223...(less)

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Aug 11, 2011 Kristine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fic, ww2-holocaust, first-reads, i-own

UPDATE: OhMyHannah! I finally finished this flipping book. I really appreciated the information and content. As a 30 year old I can look back at the story of the Nazis and say, "What the?!! How could a whole international community even ALLOW this dynasty to begin?" This book will answer that question. The story is of William Dodd, a mild-mannered college professor who is appointed ambassador to Germany after basically everyone else refuses the job. He brings his wife, his college age son, and h...more

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Dec 22, 2011 Lucy Furr rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography

Wow, In the Garden of Beasts is quite the addictive read, I had it done in almost one sitting and only put it aside because I needed sleep before work. If I had started it on a night where I had the next day off, I'm pretty sure I would have pushed sleepiness aside so I could finish it in one long, intriguing session. So be forwarded, its possible you're not gonna want to put this one down.

It really is amazing to find out that if the American government had listened to the warnings of one man, t...more

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May 11, 2011 Lyn M (readinghearts) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: lynne, Donna, Shirley, Niecole

Recommended to Lyn M (readinghearts) by: ARC

Shelves: arc, 2011, books-i-own, non-fiction-history, read-for-review

This is the newest book by the author who wrote The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America. If you are a history aficionado like me, especially if you are intrigued by Germany during the time of the Third Reich, then this is the book for you. Through the eyes of the American ambassador to Berlin and his adult daughter, Mr. Larson shows in stunning fashion how the world was determined to ignore the warning signs, and thus the true intent of Hitler and...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Michele rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Years and years ago, I remember reading Larson's book "Issac's Storm" and enjoying it, but I hadn't put two and two together yet and realized that this was the same author. And he has, quite deservedly, become quite a popular non-fiction writer.

This newest book concerns the Dodd family, whose patriarch served as America's ambassador to Germany during the mid-1930s as Hitler rose to power. Larson's research and attention to detail strike a perfect balance: he includes enough to make you feel as i...more

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Jun 05, 2011 Kiri rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: history, literature, nonfiction, ebook, reviewed

Slightly stumped as to what to say in a review of this that hasn't already been typed. I could go on about how well written it is, how it engages the reader, draws you in, ramble on about the research that was obviously done to pen this. But it's already been remarked upon, I simply don't see the point in reiterating what you've most likely read already.

If your thinking about reading this - do so. The likelihood of your being disappointed in it is quite minimal. I can say that every year I sele...more

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Apr 05, 2012 Mike (the Paladin) rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

Interesting book with a lot of value. There's a real warning here as well as a look at the rise of Hitler and the Nazis through multiple eyes. I think there are some applicable lessons in this volume that apply to situations that are current.

William Dodd was in many ways a sort of square peg in a round hole when he became America's ambassador to Germany in 1933. He seems (according to Mr. Larson) to have become ambassador because it was a post very few wanted. He had hoped to get an appointment...more Interesting book with a lot of value. There's a real warning here as well as a look at the rise of Hitler and the Nazis through multiple eyes. I think there are some applicable lessons in this volume that apply to situations that are current.

William Dodd was in many ways a sort of square peg in a round hole when he became America's ambassador to Germany in 1933. He seems (according to Mr. Larson) to have become ambassador because it was a post very few wanted. He had hoped to get an appointment to a small posting where he would have the time to work on "his book". Dodd had for years been working on a 4 volume history of the "Old South". His duties as a professor had kept him too busy to actually work on it.

This posting would leave the frugal history professor little time to write.

The book tells the story of Dodd and his wife as they watch the growth of the Nazi party. The somewhat slow disillusionment and then dismay and shock at the events around them.

The book is also very much about Dodd's daughter Martha. The writer is more sympathetic toward Martha than I am able to be. I've read of her elsewhere and have a sort of "bad first impression" that I bring to the book.

Martha was an attractive flirtatious woman who though "technically" married saw no reason to let that cramp her romantic and/or love life. She was especially slow to see the horrors of Nazism mainly I suppose because she was attempting to "sleep her way" through the entire officer corps of the German army.

Of course when she "fell in love" with an officer from the Soviet Embassy she became more aware of the evils of Nazism. Along with this however she was introduced to the wonders of communism. Now helping the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany wasn't a bad thing.

Continuing to be a Soviet agent against the United States after the war however was...at least in my opinion.

The man she fell in love with was actually an agent for the NKVD a forerunner of the KGB and Martha was recruited. Later in life this was uncovered an she and her husband...yes that's her husband. I'm not speaking of her lover who she never saw again after leaving Berlin, no. Martha suggested to her "handlers" that her husband should be recruited, and he was. The two of them fled the country and eventually died in Prague.

Martha left letters to friends denying some of this, but records uncovered after the fall of the Soviet Union bear it out. Thankfully Martha doesn't seem to have been a very effective spy.

The book leads us up through 1937 when Dodd left Berlin (with an epilog about later events) and is primarily about the events leading up to World War II and the Dodd family. Not the most enjoyable book I've ever read, but interesting with much value from several perspectives. (less)

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Sep 14, 2011 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My friend MM said it all when she said she thought she had read all she wanted to read about Nazi Germany but the Larson is such a great storyteller that she liked the book. It is told through the stories of William Dodd who was FDR's appointment as Ambassador to Germany in 1932 and his attractive, romantic, unconventional daughter who saw herself as a writer and observer of the political scene. Martha slept with the head of the Gestapo, French attaches and a Russian undersecretary (and many oth...more

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Mar 16, 2013 ☽ Moon ☯ 佛月球 Будда Луны rated it 4 of 5 stars

To use as a backdrop an event in human history well known to the whole world, where the ending has been elaborately told and retold in so many fashions, Erik Larson manages to provide a fresh twist in his own retelling as he bombarded his narrative with a skillful probing of the minute past. His novelistic approach seems to palpitate, not just with the intensity of human drama amid the irrationality of its own psyche, but also recreating the loud thrumming of the suspenseful sound that fills the...more To use as a backdrop an event in human history well known to the whole world, where the ending has been elaborately told and retold in so many fashions, Erik Larson manages to provide a fresh twist in his own retelling as he bombarded his narrative with a skillful probing of the minute past. His novelistic approach seems to palpitate, not just with the intensity of human drama amid the irrationality of its own psyche, but also recreating the loud thrumming of the suspenseful sound that fills the air with the most terrifying marches of the Third Reich's reign of terror as it blinds the rest of the world incoherently from its true nature of evil.

In The Garden of Beasts is the first hand testimony of the Dodd family in a politically charged Berlin swept in a murderous atmosphere of intrigue and uncertainty. It is the pivotal point in history when the world could have stop Hitler's ascent to power, which is about to take its full turn to an absolute rule of a totalitarian regime with a complete absence of compassion innate in human nature that could have saved millions of innocent lives under his psychopathic inclinations.

When I was younger, there was a period in time I became fascinated with materials that dealt with the Second World War. Even though, I was not inclined to read historical books at that time because of its association with school work, most of the novels that I tend to like had it as a backdrop that would swoon my consciousness temporarily into the world of fiction based on actual historical facts. I considered them as compelling and at the same time, appalling in nature. I believe that it electrified my curiosity further, not just to have a glimpse of this atrocious past, but somehow to feed myself with some light in regards to the human capacity to act with such inhuman monstrosity. In fact, it led me to buy my own copy of Thomas Keneally’s Schindler's List even prior to watching Steven Spielberg’s masterful epic.

In The Garden of Beasts is Larson’s preamble to this aftermath of Hitler’s irrational behavior that would soon become the sheer background of one of the deadliest time in human history known as The Holocaust as it shows the gathering storm in its slow and gradual accumulation in Berlin, Germany while the rest of the world is kept mum to a catatonic degree as if especially laid out by Destiny to silence all that would intervened. ☾☯(less)

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May 27, 2012 Phil rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

Larson, in my opinion, hit a home-run with this book. Reconstructing a historical context is never easy, and the kicker is that unless one were there, how could one know how accurate and correct it is. Moreover, one person's perception might now be another's. That said, I repeat, I feel Larson hit a home run.

Talk about being a fly on the wall! An honorable academic, albeit frugal, accepts an ambassadorship that apparently none of the otherwise qualified candidates was willing to accept. Dodd was...more

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Jan 19, 2013 Lewis Weinstein rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ch-research, history, ch-reviews

Ambassador Dodd, perhaps one of the most unusual ambassadors to a major country we have ever had, was initially reluctant to criticize the Hitler regime, mainly due to his nostalgic memories of the time he spent studying in Germany decades before. But it didn't take him too long to figure out just how horrible the Nazis already were in 1933 and 1934. Dodd's opponents in the State Department wouldn't listen. President Roosevelt listened, seemed to agree, but did nothing.

It seems clear from this p...more

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John Gaynard Hi Lewis,
"Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power" by Andrew Nagorski also has a lot to say about Martha Dodd.
Here's an excerpt fr...more Hi Lewis,
"Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power" by Andrew Nagorski also has a lot to say about Martha Dodd.
Here's an excerpt from James J. Sheehan's review of Hitlerland in the New York Review of Books:
"Like Erik Larson’s recent book about the Dodds, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, Hitlerland pays close attention to the adventures of Martha Dodd, the ambassador’s twenty-four-year-old daughter. Unemployed and energetic, Martha spent her ample free time pursuing a vigorous social life that revolved around love affairs with an eclectic collection of men including tourists like Thomas Wolfe, Germans like Rudolf Diels, the head of the Berlin Gestapo, and Boris Vinogradov, ostensibly a Soviet diplomat but actually a NKVD agent.

Martha arrived in Berlin without strong political views—in fact she may have shown some initial enthusiasm for the Nazis—but she was gradually drawn toward communism, in part under Vinogradov’s influence, in part through her friend Mildred Harnack an American whose German husband, Arvid, was an official in the Economics Ministry with ties to the Communist underground. After returning home with her family, Martha ended up working for Soviet intelligence. When she and her well-to-do husband, Alfred K. Stern, were indicted for espionage in 1957, they fled to Prague, where she spent the last three decades of her life. Her Berlin friends were less fortunate: Vinogradov was shot by Stalin’s secret police in 1938; the Harnacks were convicted by the Nazis of espionage; Arvid was hanged in 1942, Mildred beheaded in 1943.

When she was not busy with romantic escapades or tutorials in Marxist theory with the Harnacks, Martha Dodd spent her time among the American correspondents stationed in Berlin. During the 1930s, in what now seems like the golden age of international reporting, there were fifty American correspondents in Berlin, representing wire services and broadcasting networks as well as dozens of newspapers and magazines, many of which have long since disappeared. Not surprisingly, Nagorski, who was himself a distinguished correspondent, makes these journalists the heroes of his book. Much of Hitlerland is based on their dispatches, letters, and reminiscences."(less)
Jan 21, 2013 04:27am

Lewis Weinstein John wrote: "Hi Lewis,
"Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power" by Andrew Nagorski also has a lot to say about Martha Dodd.
Here's...more
Jan 21, 2013 05:10am

Sep 10, 2011 Gabi Harris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Although not Jewish, I grew up among Holocaust survivors and displaced Jews. They could never answer the question: "How could such civilized people commit such atrocities?" and not just in Germany. This book comes a little closer to answering the question. I feel as if the incremental evil perpetrated by the Nazis desensitized people and caused them to ignore it. The infatuation with the Nazis was due to their carefully controlled message and the power of that message (early Martha Dodd). Also,...more

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Apr 08, 2011 Julie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, own, vine, book-club

Larson’s skill at narrating non-fiction is unparalleled and the topic of his latest book is extremely intriguing. He makes history accessible and entertaining. This book follows the Dodd family to Hitler’s Berlin in 1933 when patriarch William is granted the post of US Ambassador. The early days of Hitler’s reign is a tumultuous time in the country’s history and the narrative is laced with a sense of trepidation. During Dodd’s 4-year stint as ambassador, he encounters various diplomats, foreign...more

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Dec 21, 2012 Melissa (ladybug) rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-memoir, non-fiction, team-read

This was an interesting book, but it lacked something more. The book was more about Dodd's daughter Martha and her various love affairs than the political arena of Germany during the early years of Hitler. I had really wanted more about the history during this period then about how Martha couldn't keep her hands (so to speak) to herself. I also found some frighting parts that sort of remind me of how America is going today. Situations where we give up our Constitutional freedoms for something ne...more

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Jul 01, 2012 Brendan Lyons rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is well-written but seems to concentrate almost exclusively on the first two years of the Dodd family's residence in Nazi Berlin. Dodd was the newly-appointed US ambassador and he had memories of an earlier Germany as he had studied for his doctorate at Leipzig at the turn of the century. With his liberal academic training as a historian, his dry wit, and his total lack of sympathy for the rich boy milieu of the then US diplomatic service, he was not long coming to the conclusion that...more
This book is well-written but seems to concentrate almost exclusively on the first two years of the Dodd family's residence in Nazi Berlin. Dodd was the newly-appointed US ambassador and he had memories of an earlier Germany as he had studied for his doctorate at Leipzig at the turn of the century. With his liberal academic training as a historian, his dry wit, and his total lack of sympathy for the rich boy milieu of the then US diplomatic service, he was not long coming to the conclusion that he had been set among a gang of liars, thieves and murderers passing themselves off as the legitimate government of a New Germany. He made his opinions known using historical analogy as a veiled criticism of the Nazi regime. His German audiences understood him perfectly and reacted with thunderous applause: by then they were too frightened to speak out for themselves. The reaction in the State Department was entirely different and a movement got under way to get rid of him before he alienated Hitler, since his main job in their eyes was to get the German government to pay the 1.2 billion dollars they still owed American investors. The chief drama of this story concerns the Night of the Long Knives, June 30 1934, when Hitler, Goebbels and Goering took the law into their own hands and brutally assassinated their political enemies.

After that the story tails off considerably. What, we want to know, happened in 1935 (open rearmament); 1936 (the military reoccupation of the Rhineland); 1937 (the Hossbach memorandum in which Hitler told his generals to prepare for war). Not a peep. Was Dodd still in Berlin? Well, yes, he was.

The amorous and rather flighty adventures of his 20-something daughter Martha act as a sidebar to the main story. At first taken up with the glamour and the uniforms and the apparent youthful energy of the Third Reich she underwent her own change of heart and it is suggested she may have become a Soviet agent.

It's a good story and I enjoyed it, but after the dramatic events of 1934 we get only scraps and tidbits.
(less)

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Oct 17, 2011 Helen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: world-war-ll, holocaust

A completely riveting book, dealing mostly with one pivotal year, 1933, during the last few ticks of the clock before Hitler seized total power in Germany. Larson parses every faction of the Nazi Party; every evil personality, every evil viewpoint, every indefensible position, in clear, breathlessly thrilling prose.

Roosevelt selects a new Ambassador to Germany, William E. Dodd. As he later finds out, he's not the President's first choice, or his second, or his third. No one wants the job, recogn...more

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Jul 05, 2011 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

I guess I could call this a group biography of William Dodd, a mild-mannered Midwestern professor who became US Ambassador to Germany in 1933, and his daughter Martha Dodd, a female playboy who quickly became infatuated with the glamour of Berlin nightlife. It makes for a readable story as well as a discussion of international attitudes (and blindspots) towards the Nazis as they consolidated power. Martha's memoir seems to have been particularly revealing in regard to her initial fascination wit...more

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May 23, 2011 Ron Chicaferro rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A wonderfully rich and detailed book of the early years of the Nazi party's take-over of Germany in 1933 and 1934. This is a non-fiction book but it is just as exciting as any potboiler thriller. The book is so interesting that you'll happily even read the end notes and bibliography. Its the story of U.S. Ambassador to Germany, William Dodd and his family. Dodd served from 1933 to 1937 - a time in Germany that saw the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party. Dodd may have been a little slow in recogni...more

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Nov 11, 2011 Steven Kent rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Here's a travel log for you--a penny-pinching southern college professor and his promiscuous daughter take a tour of Europe. Sounds like a plot for a movie by National Lampoon--maybe, European Vacation. This time, though, the comedy is missing.

Our penny-pinching professor is William Dodd, the man President Franklin Roosevelt sent as our ambassador to Germany in 1933.

In the Garden of Beasts tells the story of a principled man and his infamously horny daughter in a time of brutality and death. At...more

8 likes · like · see review

Nov 04, 2012 Leftbanker rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-history

En el Jardín del las Bestias is the Spanish title of this interesting first-hand view of the early years of Nazi Germany. It's seen through the eyes of the American Ambassador to Germany and his family. His daughter was actually going to be set up with Hitler on a date and it sounds like she sort of screwed her way around the Nazi hierarchy. More than anything else what I take away from reading this book is the firm realization that few people in America really gave a shit about the plight of th...more

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Aug 07, 2012 Laila rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Quite possibly the most boring book written on one of the most riveting times in recent history. I struggled to get through this. Larson raises many good questions, namely WHY was the international community so ready to ignore the ominous rise of Hitler? I still don't know, even though it was explicitly asked several times in the book. Not that there is a definitive answer, but I would have liked to hear his take on it after doing so much research on the subject. I also found it strange that he...more

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May 01, 2011 Suzanne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, world-war-ii

"I have always wondered what it would have been like for an outsider to have witnessed firsthand the gathering dark of Hitler's rule. How did the city look, what did one hear, see, and smell, and how did diplomats and other visitors interpret the events occurring around them?"

With his latest work of non-fiction, author Erik Larson takes us inside Berlin in the year 1933, to experience Hitler's rise to power from the point of view of two American protagonists. The first is William Dodd, a mild-m...more "I have always wondered what it would have been like for an outsider to have witnessed firsthand the gathering dark of Hitler's rule. How did the city look, what did one hear, see, and smell, and how did diplomats and other visitors interpret the events occurring around them?"

With his latest work of non-fiction, author Erik Larson takes us inside Berlin in the year 1933, to experience Hitler's rise to power from the point of view of two American protagonists. The first is William Dodd, a mild-mannered professor, who was practically President Roosevelt's last choice to serve as Ambassador to Hilter's Germany. The second is Dodd's 24 year-old daughter, Martha, who seeks to escape a dead marriage and experience an exciting city at the height of it's golden age.

The family settles into a mansion along the Tiergartenstrasse, an elegant district bordering a park lush with "trees and statuary." The literal meaning of the street is "Garden of Beasts", an apt name as the Dodds are soon to discover. As events unfold, Dodd, comically frugal and eager to extend American values in his new position, realizes the futility of his efforts, as the horrors of the Nazi regime become a reality he must live with. At the same time, the reader is called to sympathize with an Ambassador who is undermined and ridiculed by his own State Department.

As the Dodds hobnob with the Nazi elite, we find daughter Martha at first enamored with the new German state, and with several handsome men, with whom she has affairs. Her rose colored glasses gradually disappear as she witnesses the brutality and fear that continue to grow during that first year abroad.

Larson's journey into 193o's Berlin is exciting, gripping and full of intrigue. He gives an excellent overview of the politics affecting the decisions on both sides of the Atlantic. Not your stuffy history book, Erik Larson has you cheering for Dodd one moment and weeping for him (and the world) the next.

Thanks, Goodreads, for selecting me to receive an advance reader's edition of this book! To my fellow readers - In The Garden Of Beasts will be available to the public on May 10, 2011.(less)

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Jan 27, 2013 Linda Lindquist-Bishop rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-non-fiction

Interesting perspective of America's voice, sentiment and role leading up to WWII.
Inside view of the rise of Hilter. Solid writing, story telling and historical overview

2 likes · like · see review

May 01, 2011 Ashley rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: first-reads, historical, non-fiction, war

I wasn't expecting to enjoy this book as much as I did. I'd had some conceptual problems with Larson's previous book The Devil in the White City . I felt he'd found three really interesting stories that happened to occur during the same time and in the same place, but which were otherwise unrelated, and had smooshed them together. Smooshing things together was never an issue with In the Garden of Beasts, which is one of those rare historical books that have the tension and atmosphere of a novel....more

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About Erik Larson

Erik Larson, author of the international bestseller Isaac's Storm, was nominated for a National Book Award for The Devil in the White City. He is a former features writer for The Wall Street Journal and Time magazine, where he is still a contributing writer. His magazine stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's and other publications.

Larson has taught non-fiction wri...more

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Books by Erik Larson

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

The Naked Consumer: How Our Private Lives Become Public Commodities

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“The smell of peace is abroad, the air is cold, the skies are brittle, and the leaves have finally fallen. I wear a pony coat with skin like watered silk and muff of lamb. My fingers lie in depths of warmth. I have a jacket of silver sequins and heavy bracelets of rich corals. I wear about my neck a triple thread-like chain of lapis lazulis and pearls. On my face is softness and content like a veil of golden moonlight. And I have never in all my lives been so lonely.” — 5 people liked it

“Recalling his first impression of Hitler, Hanfstaengl wrote, "Hitler looked like a suburban hairdresser on his day off.” — 4 people liked it

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