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

by Erik Larson

The prevailing normalcy was seductive. “I

Beneath the surface, however, Germany had undergone a rapid and sweeping revolution that reached deep into the fabric of daily life. It had occurred quietly and largely out of easy view. At its core was a government campaign called Gleichschaltung—meaning “Coordination”—to bring citizens, government ministries, universities, and cultural and social institutions in line with National Socialist beliefs and attitudes.

Many American tourists returned home perplexed by the dissonance between the horrors they had read about in their hometown newspapers—the beatings and arrests of the preceding spring, the book pyres and concentration camps—and the pleasant times they actually experienced while touring Germany.

“In conclusion,” he said, “one may safely say that it would be no sin if statesmen learned enough of history to realize that no system which implies control of society by privilege seekers has ever ended in any other way than collapse.” To fail to learn from such “blunders of the past,” he said, was to end up on a course toward “another war and chaos.”

He had a knack as well for projecting an aura of sincerity that blinded onlookers to his true motives and beliefs, though Dodd had not yet come to a full appreciation of this aspect of his character.

“It was hard to believe that this man was one of the most powerful men in Europe.”