In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

[Jennifer W]

Hi everyone! It seems like there's some interest in reading In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson, so I thought I'd get a hot book read going! Feel free to join in as you read or if you have comments. Looking forward to a great discussion!

[Jennifer W]

While I have a copy out from the library already, I probably won't get to it until next weekend.

I liked Thunderstruck that we read a while ago, but that's the only other book of his I've read. I think, if this book is written at all like that one was, that there will be plenty to discuss!

[Jan C]

I urge you then to read Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History, a story of how Galveston was almost wiped off the map and the start of the weather bureau, and The Devil in the White City, the story of Chicago's World's Fair of 1893 (think Crackerjacks) both from the side of the architects who put it together, led by Daniel Burnham, and the mass murderer who took advantage of the collection of people, H. H. Holmes. I enjoyed both of these books. And if you haven't read them yet I urge you to read these two.

[Ally]

Funnily enough it was our reading of Thunderstruck that prompted me to order ' In the Garden of Beasts'...when I saw that it was by the same author it made my mind up. Erik Larson made a great deal of his subject matter in Thunderstruck weaving potentially less interesting stuff about technological breakthroughs with radio waves into an exciting 'chase' to find a murderer. If I like this one too (...it should arrive by 1st Sept) then I may well be tempted to look up Jan's other recommendations above.

[Jennifer W]

I think I bought Isaac's Storm at a book sale last year, but I haven't had a chance to start it.

[Jill]

I read all the Larson books and will be very interested in your opinion of In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin. I will say no more about the book at this point. Happy reading.

[Ally]

Just started this...quick question for our American members...if something is described as 'Jeffersonian' what does that embody? I know Thomas Jefferson was a former US President but I'm not sure what he stood for.

[Bronwyn]

It's a form of governance or political philosophy mostly. I'm not sure entirely what it means (not really my area), but I know Jefferson was more about agrarianism and being rural and sort of the everyday man. I'm not sure if that helps, or if someone can explain better.

[Ally]

Thanks Bronwyn. I did a little web search and found a few bits and pieces. If what I've found is correct then one part of the Jeffersonian political philosophy involves a preference for a 'small State' with fewer impingements on personal freedoms. It's already quite tantalising therefore that the new Ambassador to Germany was a Jeffersonian at a time when Germany (...Hitler) was taking more and more power for the State.

[Bronwyn]

Yes, I thought of the small government thing after I posted, but couldn't get back right away to add that.

Yeah, that is very interesting. In a way I can see why you might want that kind of person as the ambassador, but in another way it makes almost no sense; he wouldn't really be able to relate with how Germany was going and wouldn't be able to talk in those terms to German leaders.

[Ally]

Yes it could have gone either way couldn't it depending on the gravitas if the ambassadors personality. Unfortunately at about a third if the way through I'm not sure Dodds had much in the way of American style Charisma.

I'm finding it really interesting to see the 'rationalisation' going on...even when events of Nazi cruelty and power were witnessed first hand there was still an element of disbelief in the observer. An interesting question has been raised - to what extent should we leave a country alone to manage its own affairs? - Germany was in a desperate financial state after WWI so to see it 'on the up' must have been a relief but at what cost? Also...some commentators didn't 'see' the true state if things until they were personally caught up in it so the German propaganda machine must have been quite something!

[Jan C]

Maybe it is one of those cases of people believing what they hear. I was watching a show last night about Orson Welles' The Wart of the Worlds. People were told it was smoky out and, for some reason they believed what they heard, even though it was not at all smoky out. They would rather believe their ears than their eyes.

[Ally]

Yes...perhaps we prefer our world rose tinted. Is it a human trait to look for the good?...are we more cynical these days than in the 1930s? Or is there still a blindness/deafness to 'stuff' we just don't want to think about? I guess I'm wondering what we might sleepwalk into next. I'm surprised in reading this that I do believe people at the time didn't quite see it coming despite the warning signs.

[Jennifer W]

I've only made it about 10 pages in because I just realized that I have a book that's due this week that I want to finish up.

I have to say that based on all the reading I've done of WWII and Nazi Germany, I don't think most people did or could believe it would get as bad as it did. If WWII and the Holocaust hadn't happened, all these books we've read wouldn't exist, even as fiction, because no one would believe that things could get like that. It boggles the mind even now.

It does make you wonder though what we could be headed for and not even realize it.

[Bronwyn]

For some of that, at least in Germany, there's What We Knew by Eric Johnson and... another guy. Dr. Johnson was a professor of mine and we read that book in his class and in a historiography class. It's very enlightening.

[Jennifer W]

Oh cool, I'll have to look for it. Thanks!

[Bronwyn]

Here's the link to the book: What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany by Eric A. Johnson and Karl-Heinz Reuband.

You're welcome. :) Dr. Johnson has a few books on Nazi Germany. I also read part of Nazi Terror: The Gestapo, Jews, and Ordinary Germans.

[Ally]

I read a really good novel a while ago called 'Those Who Save Us' by Jenna Blum.

It weaves back and forth in time with a modern day university professor embarking on a research project to record the memories of ordinary Germans about their experiences of the rise of Nazism. At the same time we go back in time and learn about one woman's experiences at the time, initially she's in love with a Jewish man but then a German Official falls in love with her and she has some complex emotions to deal with and many every day braveries occur. Gradually the two stories merge.

It was a great book and I can highly recommend it for making you think about how you might act in similar circumstances.

[Jennifer W]

I read that one some time ago, too. Long ago enough that I don't really remember it!

So along the lines of what did the Germans know, my education would have me believe that the Americans didn't know what Hitler was doing to the Jews, but then gradually the story changed to, yeah, we knew it all along and did nothing. I did get a few more pages read last night and it seems FDR was well aware of what Hitler was up to when he jokes that he should send a Jew as the ambassador. So why did my education lead me to believe that we didn't know? Was it to protect my childhood sensibilities? Ally, I'm very curious as to what the British school system taught about what the Brits knew about Hitler?

[Jan C]

I have read that the State Department, being made up of patricians, was anti-Semitic. They did not encourage immigration. One book I'm reading is Villa Air-Bel: World War II, Escape, and a House in Marseille where many intellectuals, composers, artists, etc., were having to get passes by ulterior modes and some had to go over the mountains. Another one, Voyage of the Damned, shows how, despite having assurances that they would be allowed in, were turned away from both the US and, I think, Cuba.

I don't know how much the average person here knew or when they knew it. Obviously they would have heard about Hitler's rantings on the radio. William SHIRER was doing broadcasts from Berlin.

[Ally]

Excellent question...you know I can't quite remember what I was taught about Britain's knowledge other than the Appeasement policy which was, I suppose, an admittance that we knew what was going on but felt it was better to stay out of it all. Since my schooldays I have read quite a bit along the lines that the majority of the British upper classes were pro-Hitler...and since British politics was (and still is) dominated by the upper classes I can only conclude that we knew a fair bit...whether the media portrayed this to the ordinary person on the street I don't know.

I suppose in general that history is taught from a nationalistic point of view so it's possible that no country would want to teach it in a way that casts them in a bad light. Having said that I was very lucky, my first history teacher told me that there was no such thing as history...there was only His Story and Her Story. Facts in history are hard to come by he said so you must look at the sources and their context and decide for yourself what is the most plausible version.

[Jennifer W]

Ally wrote: "I suppose in general that history is taught from a nationalistic point of view so it's possible that no country would want to teach it in a way that casts them in a bad light."

That is very true, especially to young minds.

I'm reading very slowly, only a chapter a night, but last night I read about the members of the state department on their vacations and how they complained about the Jews all over the beach and hogging up the restaurant! Oh my! I think I was raised incredibly lucky, but also incredibly naive, that my first thought was "how can you tell?" I was into adulthood before I even knew that there were Jewish last names and Jewish facial features. Still, I can't look into a crowd and be like "that person's a Jew and that one..." I dunno. Like I said, lucky or naive.

[Jennifer W]

Another thought I often have about the racism of these times is where did it go? You can't spend your whole life fervently hating someone or something and teach that to your children and then a war is over and poof! hatred gone.

In America, it has gone underground. There are of course radical (scary) groups of people who proudly demonstrate their hatred, but fortunately, most Americans are appalled at that behavior these days. instead, we fear. We fear African Americans and Muslims and sometimes Hispanics. Fearing homosexuality is losing its vogue status as more and more states grant the right to marriage (it's kinda interesting to watch how that's fading away, actually). Still, I wonder where the rampant racism of the statesmen went.

I especially wonder where the desire to exterminate an entire people went in Germany. The leaders were, as much as possible, rounded up and put on trial, but what about your average person?

[Ally]

I wonder sometimes if the 'hatred' & 'fear' is manufactured by the media and the establishment and that (...much like the Nazi propaganda machine) our right wing press transfers it's ire in directions that are favourable to them, perhaps for deflection purposes. Here in the UK for example we variously see the press and the government targeting Benefits claimants, immigrants, public sector workers, trade unions etc for demonisation making them out to be pariahs on society but at the same time supporting bankers, tax evaders and big business interests that arguably have brought about the current recession and are much closer to being bad for society. It's Nowhere near as bad as what happened to the Jews in Germany but perhaps it's as good a propaganda machine. Thereby those less nice human qualities of hatred and fear are channeled into different preoccupations these days. Maybe.

[Jennifer W]

I definitely think the media played a huge role in the Nazis and continues to do so today. I'm not sure if Ferguson Missouri has made it across the world, but it was (sadly another) case of a white cop shooting an unarmed black teenager and it spurred riots and the national guard had to be brought in. Would the cop identify as racist? I'm sure he wouldn't. Was he afraid? I'm sure he was. The people rioting were certainly angry and afraid. How much of that is their own thoughts and fears and how much is stoked by the media...?

[Nigeyb]

Sadly I still perceive plenty of racism across the globe - few racists are now overtly racist which can make it harder to detect.

Many countries in Europe have successful far right groups and parties and, here in the UK, the growth of UKIP is a clear indication of increased xenophobia and a discernible drift rightwards.

As Ally suggests, politicians will frequently stoke these fires if and when it suits their agenda.

From what I can discern in the US, racism has also become more subtle but that doesn't mean it's gone away. As in Europe, there is clear structural inequality with, for example, a black man in America six times more likely to end up in prison than a white man, and twice as likely to be unemployed. There are lots of these type of statistics that illustrate the extent of the problem.

So in summary, it still exists, sadly, just not always as easy to detect. This article makes some similar points...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisf...

[Ally]

Yes...Ferguson Missouri has been in the UK news. I think that NigeyB's statistics about Black people in America also holds true in Britain with young black men being much more likely to be stopped and searched by police than their white counterparts. The rise of UKIP (the UK Independence Party) is a very scary testament as to how many ordinary people can be swayed by extreme right wing ideologies. Fascism doesn't enter your life with a bang, it seems to creep up on you promising jobs, homes etc for 'us' and restricting the rights of 'them'. All it seems to take is a charismatic leader and a groundswell of supporters. Very scary indeed given what we know of history especially reading this book.

I'm just over half way through and reading about how afraid Dr Diels (Gestapo Leader) is of Himmler (SS leader)...very interesting that mistrust and fear characterised even Nazi leadership. Ordinary people in Germany at the time were probably aware of and affected by this atmosphere especially as they seem to have 'denounced' each other for small sleights or even to get ahead in business over their rivals. It's clear that human traits like fear, ambition and pettiness can be harnessed by unscrupulous 'powers'.

Much as I'm enjoying this book I do feel very uneasy when reading it as to how easy it would be to find ourselves in similar positions.

[Jennifer W]

Nigey, I've read and heard recent research that people in the US at least are getting more extreme in their views, right and left-wing, because we live in a world where you can constantly "preach to the choir". If you want to hear right-wing statements, there's a 24 hour "news" channel for that, and if you want to hear left-wing statements, there's a 24 hour "news" channel for that. People don't have to listen to the opposition if they don't want to. On the other hand, rednecks, kids in gangs, and Muslims around the world (just to name a few) are also all following each other on facebook and twitter.

[Jennifer W]

Ally, I just watched a cool show called Myth Hunters: Himmler's Search for the Holy Grail (netflix) and Himmler's main searcher was part of the SS (because he had to be in order to get funding), but he was out of the country a lot on the quest. When he returned to Germany, he was horrified by it all. Though I haven't gotten that far in the book, I'm not too surprised that members wouldn't trust each other, they knew what other members were capable of!

In a not-at-all close or fair comparison, my employer has recently "pulled some fast ones" and relocated people to different sites. I've always felt very comfortable at my job, but I've found myself much more paranoid than usual and wondering who I can trust. I can't even imagine the pressure of living under and working for a maniacal dictator...

[Ally]

Ooh...interesting snippet about Martha driving out to meet Hans Fallada and his feelings about how it was to be a writer during the Nazi years...he even let Goebbels write the ending to one if his books in the interests of staying on the right side of the regime but wrote privately to his mother that he felt creatively compromised during this whole period. Having just read 'Alone in Berlin' it's fascinating.

[Jennifer W]

Oh, neat! I didn't get to that one unfortunately. I wonder if he ever wrote his own ending or if he left it the way Goebbels wrote it.

[Ally]

Well I finished this one this afternoon and I wasn't disappointed - it was a real page turner.

Martha came across as a bit of a spoiled brat and wasn't particularly likeable but her father, the ambassador, was slightly more likeable. I can appreciate how an academic 'thinking' personality might have jarred with the very 'physical' environment in Germany at that time. Both points of view however are very interesting subject matter for Larson's book.

I can see how Dodds' personality was ill suited to his time and place but some of his instincts and observations as his ambassadorship progressed were quite astute. Even his attempts to reduce costs were probably right for the time when world economies were in a poor state. At the end the author suggests that were Dodds to have had more support from the state dept. he may have got along better and perhaps that is true. Unfortunately the situation in Nazi Germany was so unprecedented as to be unbelievable unless you were there and witnessed events over time so it seems people were not inclined to believe the dispatches coming out of Germany whoever was sending them appeasement being the policy of preference for most countries that experienced the horrors of WWI.

[Jill]

Guys, I am really in the minority here as far as this book is concerned. As I said earlier, I have read all of Larson's books and thought they were superb. But I really disliked this one. It doesn't begin to touch on on all that was going on in Berlin during Dodd's time as ambassador and spends way too much time on his spoiled brat daughter Martha and her social activities.
I didn't see it as a history of the rise of Nazism but more a character study of the ambassador and his family. That may be what Larson was striving for but it really missed the mark for me. But differences of opinion are what make the world go 'round and I will just hide in the corner while you throw rocks at me!!!!! (smile)

[Bronwyn]

Jill, I've only read this and Devil in the White City, but I vastly preferred Devil. This one was fine, but I didn't enjoy it like I'd expected.

[Ally]

Jill I think your comments are very fair...this certainly isn't a history of the rise of naziism and it is not at all rounded or complete. The view it gives though is unique and for me it was interesting to 'see through other eyes' (...even if Martha wasn't particularly likeable!)

[Jennifer W]

Argh! Life has gotten in the way of reading! I am now furiously job hunting and haven't had much time to read. I hope to relax a bit over the weekend and do some reading, but it's likely going to take me even longer to read this book.

I hope all is well for the rest of you!

[Ally]

Good luck with the job hunt Jennifer, I hope you find something that you'll love really quickly.

[Jill]

Best wishes, Jennifer. The job market to tough these days but you will prevail!!

[Shelley]

I read it, and there's something about that time and place--ordinary people juxtaposed with extraordinary evil--that gives me a kind of vertigo.

Shelley
http://dustbowlstory.wordpress.com

[Jennifer W]

Thank you for your thoughts! I'm looking and applying all over.

I am getting some reading done. I'm up to the impressive page of 57! The following quote caught my eye. "we are living at present in a sea of denunciations and human meanness." That from Hitler! And scarily true today, too.

[Barbara]

Good luck with your job search, Jennifer. I hope you'll find something great, and soon.

In the meantime, enjoy your reading.

Hmm, Hitler should talk about human meanness!

[Jan C]

Jennifer W wrote: "Thank you for your thoughts! I'm looking and applying all over.

I am getting some reading done. I'm up to the impressive page of 57! The following quote caught my eye. "we are living at present in..."

You may be a little farther along than I am. I'm having a little trouble getting into it.

Good luck with the job search.

[Jennifer W]

Up to page 80 and having a hard time understanding how Dodd can be so clueless? stubborn? dumb? about what's happening to the Jews. He says "All one can do is to present the American point of view and stress the unhappy consequences of such a policy as has been pursued." Really?? That's all he could do?? Is that him not having the guts or ability to speak up more or is it really what his role as ambassador allowed? It feels like he's a wimp and looking for a convenient excuse to do nothing.

[Ally]

I too was appalled at that aspect of history laid bare in this book. I put it down to the fact that there was a common 'casual' anti-semitism among people of his class at that time and that together with the 'appeasement' policies being pursued it was easy to turn a blind eye. Particularly for a diplomat there would have been a fine line to tread when it came to 'war avoidance' strategies and the lukewarm feelings many had towards the Jews meant that they were compromised in the pursuit of peace. Awful now that we know the ultimate goal but in those early days perhaps not so clear cut?

[Jennifer W]

I agree that it was just an accepted casual thing to be anit-Semetic. I actually giggled a bit when Martha said "we don't like them very much." It's just so naive and downright childish, but on the other hand, it was the truth.

I'm a bit further along and Martha's Russian friend (cant remember his name) has had to go on the run. While the author has said that this relationship was one that affected her for the rest of her life, she doesn't seem concerned that he's just up and taken off. At least not yet. She's too busy throwing Birthday parties and not recognizing the fine line she ought to be walking as an American, as the daughter of a diplomat, and as a human being at this time.

[Jill]

It was Martha and her attitudes/actions that ruined the book for me. She was so self involved that, as Jennifer said, she did not recognize her role as and American and the daughter of a diplomat.

Anti-Semitism has been taken as a given for hundreds of years. Some of the great Americans, including Presidents and other world leaders have been virulent anti-Semites since it was acceptable prior to WWII. Of course, it still exists today but it is to be hoped that the Holocaust has taught at least some of the world a lesson.

"Never again" לעולם לא עוד

[Jennifer W]

Slowly, slowly...

I've gotten to the point where both Dodd and Martha have met Hitler. Dodd was (easily) swayed by Hitler's promises that no more assaults will take place against Americans. Martha seems mostly unimpressed. She only seems to have met him to try to seduce him and "change history"? I wonder what was expected of her in the path of Hitler??

[Jennifer W]

Over halfway finished and I'm finding the story picking up for me. The paranoia the Dodds have started feeling even in their own home is palpable. And not all that surprising to me.

I love how flummoxed the Germans are that the State Department won't stop the trial of Hitler in Madison Square Garden. They've so heartily embraced the dictatorship and total control that they can't even remember freedom of speech.

[Jennifer W]

Getting to then end! I read the part about the party at Fallada's house. It was interesting to read about the decision to stay or go for artists and authors. (On a related note, I just picked up The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book, which I hope to get to once I finish this one). I can't imagine having to decide between your home and your passion.

[Jennifer W]

Finished! In some ways, I really liked it, but in others I'm very disappointed. I don't feel like I got a firm understanding of Dodd. The end, after he has passed, the author reflects that "to his opponents.. he was a maverick who complained too much..." but to others, he was "a hero." I don't get either sense of him. I find him to be naïve, whining, and ineffectual. Perhaps that is because I am looking at those years with 20-20 hindsight and wondering what else could have been done to stop Hitler and avoid this whole disaster all together. I also think my viewpoint is because I didn't get a true sense in this book what horrors were really being perpetuated at that time. A few Americans got roughed up, and the Jews started being persecuted with laws and terminations from jobs, but until the night of the executions of the "revolutionaries", I didn't get a sense of the scariness in full force.

I actually like Martha as a character. She wanted to be young and free and not worry about the nonsense of the world. She was very 1920s/1930s American woman in that respect. Her time in Berlin wasn't meant to be serious and diplomatic, it was supposed to be a grand vacation. She had intended to be artistic, have love affairs, eat, drink and party, and those "fool" Nazis had to mess up her good time.

All in all, I'm glad I read it, but it feels like it was missing some things for me.