Erik Larson - In the Garden of Beasts

23 “The consul,” Phillips replied: Phillips to Proskauer, Aug. 5, 1933, vol. 17, p. 40, Archives of the Holocaust .

The exchange of letters between Phillips and Proskauer, pages 32–46, makes compelling reading, for both what is said and what is not said. On the one side, deploying statistics and dispassionate prose, is Phillips, who, as we have seen, disliked Jews. On the other was Proskauer, a judge, whose careful prose seems clearly to be masking a scream of anguish.

24 One result, according to Proskauer: Dippel, 114; Proskauer to Phillips, July 18, 1933, vol. 17, p. 36, Archives of the Holocaust .

Proskauer tells Phillips, “The well-known fact that only a negligible number of U.S. quota visas have been issued in recent years, and are believed to be likely to be issued, other than to relatives of U.S. citizens, has prevented applications being made by German Jews, believed in advance to be futile….”

25 It was an argument: Breitman and Kraut, 14.

26 “The German authorities”: Dodd, Diary , 5.

27 Dodd insisted: Ibid.

28 “You are quite right”: Ibid.

29 Here at the State Department: Dallek, 191; Stiller, 33, 36–37; Kershaw, Hubris , 473–74.

30 “Forty-Page George”: Stiller, 5.

Jay Pierrepont Moffat, Western European affairs chief, left the following entry in his diary for Oct. 6 and 7, 1934: “Saturday afternoon being cold and rainy, I was sitting home reading through Messersmith’s four last personal letters (that does not sound like an afternoon’s job but it took nearly two hours)….”

31 “has probably ever existed”: Messersmith to Hull, May 12, 1933, Messersmith Papers.

32 “Responsibility has already changed”: Ibid., 15. See also Messersmith to Hull, June 19, 1933, Messersmith Papers.

In his June 19 dispatch, Messersmith wrote, “The primary leaders have under the sobering influence of responsibility become steadily more moderate in practically all of their views and have in many ways endeavored to translate this moderation into action.”

33 “I have tried to point out”: Messersmith to Phillips, June 26, 1933, Messersmith Papers.

34 “Pleasing, interesting person”: Diary, June 15, 1933, Carr Papers.

35 distaste for Jews: Weil, 41.

36 “He is extremely sure of his opinion”: Moffat, Diary, June 15, 1933.

37 Undersecretary Phillips grew up: Phillips, “Reminiscences,” 3, 50, 65, 66, 99; Phillips, Ventures , 4, 5, 183.

In “Reminiscences,” the transcription of an oral history interview, Phillips (on pages 2–3) stated, “The Boston that I grew up in was limited to friends who lived on the Hill and in the Back Bay district. The community was self-centered—we lived surrounded by cousins, uncles and aunts and there was no incentive to discuss national or world affairs…. I must say it was a very pleasant place in which to grow up, but it was a very easy and indulgent life. We saw no signs of poverty…. We were in fact on a sort of island of well-being….”

38 “They have all felt that they belonged”: Weil, 47.

39 “I am sorry”: Dodd to John D. Dodd, June 12, 1933, Box 2, Martha Dodd Papers.

40 “this great honor from D.C.”: John D. Dodd to Dodd, June 15, 1933, Box 2, Martha Dodd Papers.

41 “A rather sorrowful day”: Dodd, Diary , 8.

42 Dodd feared: Dallek, 194; Floyd Blair to Jay Pierrepont Moffat, June 28, 1933, Box 40, W. E. Dodd Papers.

43 A letter from a prominent Jewish relief activist: George Gordon Battle to Dodd, July 1, 1933, Box 40, W. E. Dodd Papers. See also telegram, Battle to Dodd, July 1, 1933, Box 40.

44 “There was much talk”: Dodd, Diary , 9.

45 “For an hour and a half”: Ibid.

46 During this meeting: Chernow, 374–75, 388.

47 “I insisted that the government”: Dodd, Diary , 9.

48 The news was humbling.: Ibid., 10.

49 “the Jews should not be allowed to dominate”: Ibid., 10.

50 “The Jews, after winning the war”: Crane to Dodd, June 14, 1933, Box 40, W. E. Dodd Papers.

51 Dodd partly embraced Crane’s notion: Dodd to Crane, Sept. 16, 1933, Box 40, W. E. Dodd Papers.

52 “Let Hitler have his way.”: Dodd, Diary , 11.

53 A dozen or so reporters: Ibid., 11.

54 By this point he had begun: Ibid., 7.

55 “a disproportionate amount of sadness”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 17.

1 Martha continued to cry: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 17–18.

2 She saw Hitler as “a clown”: Ibid., 10.

3 As a student at the University of Chicago: Ibid., 5.

4 “I was slightly anti-Semitic”: Ibid., 5.

5 One poll found: Breitman and Kraut, 88.

6 A poll taken decades in the future: Anti-Defamation League, 2009, ADL.org.

7 “an enchantress”: Vanden Heuvel, 225.

8 “The personality is all there”: Sandburg, Box 63, W. E. Dodd Papers.

9 “give way to every beckoning”: Ibid.

10 “find out what this man Hitler”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 16–17.

11 Thornton Wilder also offered: Wilder to Martha, n.d., Box 63, W. E. Dodd Papers.

In one letter, dated Sept. 15, 1933, Wilder wrote, “I can see the plane rides”—here an apparent reference to the airborne courtship of her by Ernst Udet, World War I flying ace and aerial adventurer—“and the tea dances and the movie-stars; and the brisk (soon autumnal) stroll in the most autumnal of all great parks. But I cannot see what you’re like when you’re alone—or alone just with the family—or alone with the typewriter. Your letters are so vivacious that they deafen my mind’s eye to all this other.”

He opens his letters to her, variously, with “Dear Marthy,” “Dear Handsome,” “Dear Marthy-la-Belle.”

“We’re cusses,” he wrote in April 1935, “both of us, preposterous exasperating cusses and were meant to be friends.”

12 Martha kept a picture: Brysac, 142.

13 “half a dozen or more”: Wise, Servant , 191–92.

14 “He was most friendly”: Ibid.

15 “One cannot write the whole truth”: Ibid.

16 “unfair at many points”: Dodd, Diary , 241.

17 His daughter, Martha: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 12.

18 He told a friend: Bailey, 150.

19 Dodd had assumed: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 20.

20 Meanwhile, Dodd fielded questions: Ibid., 20; Dodd, Diary , 12.

21 He was stiff and arrogant: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 20–21.

22 “very choleric temperament”: Messersmith, “Some Observations on the appointment of Dr. William Dodd, as Ambassador to Berlin,” unpublished memoir, 8, Messersmith Papers.

23 “clipped, polite, and definitely condescending”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 20.

24 “the like of which”: Ibid., 21.

25 Mrs. Dodd—Mattie: Ibid., 21.

26 “a dry, drawling, peppery man”: Breitman and Kraut, 40.

27 “I liked Dodd”: Messersmith, “Some Observations on the appointment of Dr. William Dodd, as Ambassador to Berlin,” unpublished memoir, 3, Messersmith Papers.

28 “a perfect example”: Fromm, 121.

29 “looks like a scholar”: Ibid., 120.

30 “is clear and capable”: Brysac, 141.

31 “a woman who is seriously interested”: Ibid.

32 “I was drawn to her immediately”: Unpublished memoir, 3, Box 13, Martha Dodd Papers.

33 She found long, straight boulevards: While I ought to footnote every little nugget in this rather long paragraph, frankly the effort would be too tedious and of limited value. So allow me to refer the reader to a couple of sources that provided me with a vivid sense of old Berlin: Ladd, The Ghosts of Berlin; Friedrich, Before the Deluge; Richie, Faust’s Metropolis; Gill, A Dance Between Flames . For a quirky look at Berlin’s night life, see Gordon, Voluptuous Panic . Also I urge anyone with a yearning for still more knowledge of Berlin to visit YouTube.com and search for “Symphony of a Great City.” You’ll be delighted.