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

by Erik Larson

The attack followed a pattern that would become all too familiar: On the evening of Tuesday, August 15, Mulvihill was walking along Unter den Linden on his way to a drugstore when he stopped to watch the approach of a parade of uniformed SA members. The Storm Troopers were reenacting for a propaganda film the great march through the Brandenburg Gate that took place on the night of Hitler’s appointment as chancellor. Mulvihill looked on, unaware that one SA man had left the parade and was headed his way. The trooper, without preamble, struck Mulvihill hard on the left side of his head, then calmly rejoined the parade. Bystanders told the stunned surgeon that the assault likely had occurred because of Mulvihill’s failure to offer the Hitler salute as the parade passed. This was the twelfth violent attack on an American since March 4.