In the Garden of Beasts
discussion
Why did the Author leave out tha Martha Dodd was a Soviet Spy?
You know, Leslie, I've actually been pushing this discussion along, and adding to it, which is more that what you've done. So if you can't add to the discussion then pershaps you should.....
Hello Mr. McNally,Why would the StB secret police rob her house? Why would they tie her up? Has there been any further investigation into her death?
Aside from that, I think Larkin gave a good overall impression that Martha was a Soviet Spy, or at least was being molded by the soviets via Boris to able to work for them. He mentioned that Boris's superiors in Russia thought that Martha could "work for us". He explained that Boris's actual name for her was Juliet #2, eluding to the possibility that Boris had already been working on recruiting a female spy for Russia. Larkin explained that there were charges brought against her and her husband by the State Department for espionage and that they fled to Prague. He did fail to mention that they were convicted of espionage and were allowed back to Moscow before returning finally to Prague where her life ended. Larkin had many notes the explained Martha was a spy. In my opinion, Larkin didn't harp on Martha being a spy so much because her real use as a NKVD and later KGB spy was not fully implemented until WWII was in full swing which didn't begin until after the relevant years covered in the book 1933-1934.
Either way, it was a disturbing but brilliant book looking in to the accent of Hitler, and the role that Ambassador Dodd and his family played (or failed to play) in Hitler's ascent. It was a very painful look in to a time and a man that most people do not even know existed, and in to a great countries descent into psychosis. When looking to understand Hitler, the war, and the anti-Semitic, isolationist mood of the US government, that played a big part in the failure to prevent WWII, this is the best book out there. Any suggestions on reads that pick up around the time Larkin left off?
Robert wrote: "Hello Mr. McNally,Why would the StB secret police rob her house? Why would they tie her up? Has there been any further investigation into her death?
Aside from that, I think Larkin gave a good o..."
Thanks for writing. your comments were extremely useful and informative. My understanding was that Martha's NKVD name was 'Liza' I need to do more research. It is also my understanding that she and her husband were never tried or convicted, since they had fled and were out of the hands of American justice. In the late 1970s, they apparently met with some Justice Department officials at a resort in Yugoslavia and told them something. Some time after that, President Carter formally dropped charges against them, to the screaming outrage of the FBI. The sense was that too much time had passed and people in power felt uncomfortable with an unfinished piece of business from the McCarthy era. On the other hand, the IRS maintained its charges and tax bill against the Dodds and that kept them from ever coming back.
As for why did the StB rob Martha's villa and leave her tied up? They robbed her because the jig was up for them. the new 'democratic' regime had not yet fully take power. She had nice stuff that they could make money fencing. So they saw their opportunity and took it. My friend said she got called up by the chauffeur after it happened and kind of hinted that he and the boys were behind it.
As far as I know, no investigation ever took place.
Larsen's books are about slices of time in the life of people, not full biographies. It was interesting to read of the early days of the Reich, especially from a different perspective (that of Americans in Berlin). However, unlike Devil in the White City, Issac's Storm, and Thunderstruck, the ending felt a little flat. It couldn't really have been otherwise, though - like "The Empire Strikes Back", it was obvious that there was so much more of a story to tell afterwards for Germany and for the American protagonists.
Wow! I have a totally different take on this book then any of you. I think it gives an excellent view of how the State Department and the United States as a whole was handling the rise of Hitler. Martha was just a part of a bigger story. Was she a Nazi come Communist sympathizer? Probably. Was she a woman of lose morals? Absolutely. Was she naive, self centered and used? Yes. But that's not what this book is about. To me the main thrust of the book was the United States opinions and actions during the rise of Nazi Germany. It showed how much more interested the rich boys in the State Department were in seeing that First City Bank of New York and Chase Manhattan got repaid for the bad loans they had made to Germany. There were so many anti-semitic Nazi sympathizers in the United States. The only ones standing up to Hitler were the Communists whose real fear was he would invade Russia. No one seemed to be taking up for the Jews and others that were on Hitler's hit list. Not even in the United States. If I'm going to be ashamed of someone during this period it's not Martha Dodd for being a Communist sympathizer with loose morals but our State Department for being heartless, self-centered and totally naive.
Betsy, I think you just nailed it!The FDR administration and the state Department didn't take Hitler at all seriously. Otherwise they wouldn't have sent someone like Dodd. Maybe that's the great virtue of this book; to show America and Americans at that turning point when we started facing the very ugly reality about Hitler. It's a moment we're not used to thinking about. In Shareen Brysac's book Resisting Hitler, she talks about the appearance at the Embassy in Berlin of this character named Donald Heath, who was probably the first real American spook to start dealing with the situation. He was jointly employed by State and Treasury. It was fairly late in the game. The Dodds might have already left. But he was there until after Pearl Harbor. He even used his young son as a secret courier with at least one agent. Mildred Harnack. A great story that someone needs to tell!
Betsy wrote: "Wow! I have a totally different take on this book then any of you. I think it gives an excellent view of how the State Department and the United States as a whole was handling the rise of Hitler...."Betsy, I too believe that you clearly see the greater picture. As is unfortunately so often the case the easiest way to evaluate political will and actions of Washington is to follow the money. I was shocked to discover that at one point FDR was made an offer by Nazi high command to "purchase jews for $1 a head and pay for their exportation to the US if Americans were so concerned about their welfare under Hitler's regime". FDR declined realizing that America at that time had a strong anti-semite prejudice itself and FDR worried about upsetting his voters with an influx of Hebrew business men.
I think people today would be shocked at the degree of anti-semitic sentiment in the US at the time. It was especially bad inside the Department of State.
I haven't read all these comments but you should also read Hitlerland by Andrew Nagorski. If anyone mentioned that book...my apologies.
Ron wrote: "Brendan, you will love Devil in the White City - its an amazing book as well researched as any you'll find."Devil in the White City is the best of Larson's books, in my humble opinion.
I read it first, the rest have fallen short.
Annie, you would not believe how many people have told me exactly the same thing about Devil in the White City.
I also read "Devil" first and liked it best, but I enjoyed the other works I've read from him, as well (with the possible exception of "Thunderstruck").
It's certainly clear in the latter part of the book that Martha Dodd became a Soviet spy at some point. The book isn't about this phase of her life. It's quite clear that Martha admired the Nazis in her first six months living in Berlin. William Dodd had his shortcomings but you have to credit him with trying to warn the rest of the world of the military buildup within Germany and of the coming war with Germany. Dodd is also admirable for refusing to attend the large Nazi propaganda rallies. He's not so admirable when he's found guilty of a hit and run crime against a small child in Virginia.
I learned the other day, that in the first years after arriving in Prague, Martha was employed teaching etiquette to Czechoslovak diplomats wive prior to their postings abroad. But I think you nailed the author's point. It was outside the scope of the book. He was focusing on that period. I'm wondering if you can see William Dodd being played by Tom Hanks?
Well obviously he didn't want to blow her cover.Like, if I were all spying for the soviets and stuff, they're scary dudes, and I wouldn't want to be ratted out, you know?
Put yourself in her shoes. You're walking around, just had a good spying session, and you go to the soviets with your packet of spy info, and they're all looking at you like, "Whoa, Martha. Just whoa. You got yourself exposed? This dude wrote about you, man!" And you're all ashamed and stuff, and you can't spy anymore, but since you know too much, they're going to have to kill you.
Understand why now?
Good.
Actually, she did most of her spying between the sheets and rarely woke up before eleven. The soviets were alarmed at her erratic, flamboyant behavior. And if the KGB archives are to be believed, they engaged a KGB psychologist to meet with her and help her. And yes, sports fans, she nailed him too!
I would love to read a book based on Martha. I have not researched to see if there is one out there. Does anyone know of one?
Heck, It's been on my mind forever too. I might just do it, myself.On the other hand there is a great book about Mildred von Harnack, Martha's best friend in Germany. That book is called Resisting Hitler, and the author's name is Shareen Brysac. I interviewed her once a couple years ago. She never met Martha, though they corresponded and she travelled to Prague to meet her only to be turned away. The next time she tried was in late 89 and the Revolution was underway.
Thanks, I will put on my list.
A person who might actually have some memories and oddball opinions of Martha Dodd is Shirley Temple Black, the then American Ambassador to Czechoslovakia
It would be great to hear her take on the story.
When she appeared in Prague in 1957, she said she had come to escape American oppression. The funny thing was, that as the years passed, she became more and more involved with the Czech resistence. She once practically ordered my friend Dora to go to a demonstration. She sent her off in her limo, driven by the chauffer, who was certainly a secret police plant. There at the demonstration were the same secret police guys who were parked out front of her house every day. He introduced Dora to them, which scared the crap out of her. One of Martha's proteges from this period was this woman who became the first Czechoslovak ambassador to Washington. I suspect that must have embarrassed Shirley temple Black a great deal.
Also Dora told me she strongly suspected that those secret police guys were the ones who later robbed the house and left Martha tied up. She died shortly afterwards
Montrudd wrote: "He didn't. It was sort of a side bar to the novel; read some of the information in the 'notes' section--very interesting as well. I agree with most of the posts that the primary focus of the story ...""...the novel..."?
Betsy wrote: "Wow! I have a totally different take on this book then any of you. I think it gives an excellent view of how the State Department and the United States as a whole was handling the rise of Hitler...."You're spot on! The author told us all we needed to know about Martha. She added spice and life to the narrative, but she and her activities were not the premise of the book.
I found this book interesting, but after all the above comments, I'm going to reread it.
Some place way back in this blog I stated that I felt, as Betsy does, that this is a book about how our government responded to the crisis -- and it was a shameful "looking the other way" so Germany would make good on the debt it owed Wall Street. It usually comes down to money in one form or another. The book has some great information and its main thrust was not Martha.
I wish my copy of the book wasn't in a storage container on another continent. I definitely need to re-read it. Hopefully when I go up to prague to search for martha's traces I'll find a copy in one of the English-language bookstores.
I am going to Prague too -- this summer because of Madeline Albright's book Prague Winter. Have never been there.
I think he made it very clear in the book that she was a spy. I enjoyed the book but I would have liked to read the story without Dodd and his truly boring offspring. The characters had no life in them whatsoever.
The Author did not leave out that Dodd was a spy.
I loved this book and what I took from it was that William Dodd was a very good man. Martha Dodd was not the main focus but it was strange to gloss over her later spying activities. I found her a very interesting character and more likeable than most posters seem to. She was obviously naive and that is being kind. She was intially attracted to the Nazis but many people of her class were at that time. She began to hate them when she saw what they really were. It would have been easy to recruit her as a Russian spy because at that time the soviets seemed to be the only people on the international stage who saw the threat the Nazi's posed at that early stage. Certainly the American and British goverments didn't. At that stage her spying could be seen as in a noble cause though her continued activities after the war are undoubtedly treason however inept a spy she seemed to be. I know it wasn't the focus of the book but it merited a mention. I would love to know more about this Lady though.
Betsy wrote: "Wow! I have a totally different take on this book then any of you. I think it gives an excellent view of how the State Department and the United States as a whole was handling the rise of Hitler...."Betsy,
I agree with you. Martha was not very important to the world events going on around her. However, I thought the author's exhaustive inclusion of her in the book was boring and detracted from the main thrust of the book which was the U.S.'s reaction to Hitler.
I agree that a greater emphasis should have been put on William Dodd and the political battles going on in washington at this crucial point in History as this seems to have been the original purpose of the book. However I do not see Martha as unimportant because both the Russians and the Germans clearly saw in her an opportunity to discover America's intentions. While I admire William Dodd he should have seen that his daughter was a security risk.
Larson likes to talk about historic world events by focusing on a few small players within them. As such, this book was totally in keeping with his modus operandi. An emphasis on the politics at the expense of those persons and their small role would be better left to a different author.
It is a strange style of writing as it is a fact based book but he is not scared to interpret events and show where his sympathies lie. I am a history nut and I have always been fascinated by the rise of Hitler so I really liked this book.
Martha was naive, ditzy and puffed up with a sense of self-importance. I will say that for her time, she would appear to have been a fairly accomplished woman, having graduated from college and been working as a journalist. Even so, she was just not that bright. She bounced around from man to man and political philosophy to political philosophy, with nary a thought about what she was actually doing. She had no intellectual anchor in life. Her father at least was anchored to Thomas Jefferson. And then to end up spying, however ineptly, for the Russian communists was incredible! How ironic that she never learned that this supposed great love of her life, Boris, appeared to have been told to cultivate her affection by the communists and never had an interest in the marriage she dreamed of. That she stayed loyal to the communists even after Boris was shot by them just tells us even more what a fool she was.
Ron wrote: "Half way through Brendan McNally's book Germania - instead of the beinning of the war, like Garden of the Beasts, Germania focuses on the last few weeks - with the Russians close to entering Berlin..."I will have to check that out. I read Garden of Beasts and loved it. There is so much there that I didn't know about that period in history. I am also curious to know more about Martha Dodd's later life as a possible spy. Overall, I think her father did a good job as ambassador even though it is clear that the U.S. could have moved sooner to get Hitler. The author does a good job of showing the politics involved in why that wasn't the case. It just shows how it is not always black and white and understanding how to solve a problem takes a lot of rigor and taking into account different perspectives.
As someone who is originally from Chicago, there was an extra level of enjoyment for me of the Devil in the White City, which is set there for those who have not read it. Truly chilling tale. Sort of Hannibal Lecter moves to the Second City. I also liked In the Garden of Beasts as someone who has walked through that park many times and written about Germany as a journalist and novelist, but I have to say Devil is the better book.p.s. I agree with those who said the Soviet spy stuff was in the notes and occurred after the period of Beasts story so no harm done in not hitting that point on the head.
Brendan wrote: "I think this is a great book, I'm just perplexed that the Author, kinda can't bring himself to state a well-known, historically documented fact: That Martha Dodd was a Soviet Spy. She took all the ..."Brendan, I think Mr. Larsen has a great deal of sympathy for Martha. Far too much sympathy, in my opinion. I absolutely despised this imbecilic slut. The rest of the Dodd's (we don't really ever find out much about Mrs Dodd or the brother) did grow more sympathetic throughout the book. By the end, I found myself respecting Dr. Dodd- but Martha? She is an absolutely awful human being in every way. I am not surprised she would go from the abhorrent Nazi's to scuttle over to the repellent Communists. Mr. Larsen treats her with kid gloves throughout the book and I wished that he had focused on people like Ms Schultz the Chicago Tribune European chief writer-a vastly more intelligent and vastly more courageous woman who had deep and valuable insights into the coming Nazi madness. Instead we get treated to Martha Dodd the working-class Paris Hilton unleashed upon Nazi Germany. Damn shame Adolf didn't end up liking her, what a wonderful couple they would have made.
Sara wrote: "I found that particular scene disturbing, as well. Not only was she apathetic and indifferent, her naïveté made her an easy target to be influenced and indoctrinated in anti-semitism and communism...."Sara..you said "many" redeeming qualities, in regards to Martha... did you perhaps mean "any"? ;)
Sarah wrote: "Maybe she was just hiding her head in the sand. I hope she never Googles herself and reads what I've written. I was thinking of her as a character in a book not a real person. She's elderly now. ..."
Sarah,
as awful a person as she was when she was young, she became worse when she went to Nazi Germany and never really changed as a middle-aged to older woman in bed (no pun intended) with the Communists. Such a person should know just how much in contempt she is held by the world. To this day. Though as shallow and empty as she is, I doubt she would care.
Brendan Brendan you should write all the stories down that you can remember hearing about Martha Dodd being Soviet spy and what it was like to work with her!! I was very curious about why Larson didn't go into detail more about Martha's relationship with the Soviet union.
Laura wrote: "What was written of Martha Dodd in Larson's book portrayed a young, spoiled woman with little empathy towards fellow humans being treated in vicious, brutalizing ways by her German acquaintances. Y..."Well said and while that is a harsh judgement upon the Ambassador, it is accurate and the daughter is a disaster.
Larson did discuss Martha's support of the Soviet Union and spy activities - during the epilogue.
Eileen wrote: "Martha was naive, ditzy and puffed up with a sense of self-importance. I will say that for her time, she would appear to have been a fairly accomplished woman, having graduated from college and bee..."Boy, did you nail it, or what.
The woman was so frivolous and shallow that it would be giving her far more credit than she was due, to even *call* her a "spy".
A great book because of the parrallels with Hitler and you know who. Do think if Larson wrote more about her spying for Russia it would have distracted us from the horrors going on in Germany,particularly since we aren't in love with Russia.
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Seriously, I think I'm a pretty good story teller, my friends tell me so. But my friends have also read Devil in the White City and they kee..."
Come on, Brendan! Stop spamming up this board hawking your book.