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

by Erik Larson

Messersmith refused to salute and merely stood at attention, but he understood that for ordinary Germans that would not have sufficed. At times even he felt real pressure to conform. At the close of a luncheon he attended in the port city of Kiel, all the guests stood and with right arms extended sang the national anthem and the “Horst Wessel Song.” Messersmith stood respectfully, as he would have in America for the “Star-Spangled Banner.” Many of the other guests, including a number of Storm Troopers, glared at him and whispered among themselves as if trying to divine his identity. “I felt really quite fortunate that the incident took place within doors and among on the whole intelligent people,” he wrote, “for if it had been in a street gathering or in an outdoor demonstration, no questions would have been asked as to who I was, and that I would have been mishandled is almost unquestionable.” Messersmith recommended that American visitors try to anticipate when the songs and salute would be required and leave early.