Erik Larson - In the Garden of Beasts

34 “The bells on the streetcars”: Kaes et al., 560–62.

35 “Oh, I thought it was burned down!”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 22.

36 “Sssh! Young lady”: Ibid., 22.

37 Greta Garbo once was a guest: Kreuder, 26.

Kreuder’s “cultural history” of the Hotel Esplanade includes a number of photographs of the hotel before and immediately after World War II, and in its current incarnation as an artifact sequestered behind a wall of glass. For more on this, please read my source essay (pp. 367–75).

38 the Imperial Suite: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 22; for specific room numbers, see letter, Hotel Esplanade to George Gordon, July 6, 1933, Box 40, W. E. Dodd Papers.

39 “that there was scarcely space”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 22.

40 “modest quarters”: Messersmith, “Some Observations on the appointment of Dr. William Dodd, as Ambassador to Berlin,” unpublished memoir, 2, Messersmith Papers.

41 The family settled in: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 22–23.

42 Later that evening: Ibid., 23–24.

43 “In the Tiergarten”: Kaes et al., 425.

44 “I am sure this was”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 23.

45 “I felt the press had badly maligned”: Ibid., 24.

1 “A little pudgy”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 24.

2 “the dragon from Chicago”: Schultz, “Dragon,” 113.

3 The opening of one such camp: Stackelberg and Winkle, 145. Regarding “wild” camps, KZs, and such, see Krausnick et al., 400, 410, 419;

Richie, 412; Fritzsche, 43; Fest, 115–16; Kershaw, Hubris , 462, 464; Deschner, 79. As of July 31, 1933, some 26,789 people were held in protective custody, according to Krausnick et al., 410.

4 “I didn’t believe all her stories”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 24.

5 “What a youthful, carefree”: de Jonge, 140.

6 Within days she found herself: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 24.

7 “their funny stiff dancing”: Ibid., 24.

8 “weren’t thieves”: Ibid., 25.

9 the Berliner Schnauze: Jelavich, 31.

10 “I’m not Jewish”: Grunberger, 371; de Jonge, 161; for more on Finck, see Jelavich, 236–41, 248.

11 “The sun shines”: Isherwood, Berlin Stories , 207.

It cannot be said enough that Germany’s seeming normalcy in this period was deeply seductive to outsiders. Angela Schwarz, in her article “British Visitors to National Socialist Germany,” writes that “a considerable number of British travellers concluded after a tour through the Third Reich, perhaps even one organized by the authorities, that in Germany everything was as quiet and peaceful as could be.” Schwarz, 497.

12 Gleichschaltung —meaning “coordination”: Orlow, 29; Bullock, 149; Kershaw, Hubris , 479; Hughes and Mann, 81; Gill, 238.

Engelmann, 36, offers a slightly different translation: “bringing into line.” Orlow, in his History of the Nazi Party , notes that the literal translation is “to switch equal,” a physics term that “originally denoted the coordination of different types of electrical current.” Orlow, 29.

13 “self-coordination”: Kershaw, Hubris , 481; Gisevius, 96; Gellately, Gestapo , 11, 137.

14 Gerda Laufer: Gellately, Gestapo , 97.

15 coined by a post office clerk: Crankshaw, 15.

16 One study of Nazi records: Cited in Gellately, Gestapo , 146.

17 In October 1933: Gellately, Gestapo , 137–38.

18 “we are living at present”: Ibid., 139.

There was nothing funny about the Gestapo, but this did not stop Berliners from quietly—very quietly—coining and trading jokes about the agency. Here’s one of them: “At the Belgian border crossing, huge numbers of rabbits appear one day and declare that they are political refugees. ‘The Gestapo wants to arrest all giraffes as enemies of the state.’—‘But you’re not giraffes!’—‘We know that, but try explaining that to the Gestapo!’” Evans, Power , 106.

19 only about 1 percent: Dippel, xviii; Gill, 238.

Kershaw, in his Popular Opinion and Political Dissent , presents statistics that show that 70.9 percent of Germany’s Jews lived in cities having more than 100,000 inhabitants. In Bavaria, the percentage was 49.5. “One implication of this is obvious,” he writes: “the population of large tracts of Bavaria had no, or at best minimal, contact with Jews. For very many, therefore, the Jewish Question could be of no more than abstract significance.” Kershaw, Popular Opinion , 226–27.

20 some ten thousand émigrés: Dippel, 114.

21 “Hardly anyone thought”: Zuckmayer, 320.

22 “It was easy to be reassured”: Dippel, 153.

23 The salute, he wrote: Messersmith to Hull, Aug. 8, 1933, Messersmith Papers.

24 “I felt really quite fortunate”: Ibid., 4.

25 Dodd threw him a mock salute: Martha to Thornton Wilder, Sept. 25, 1933, Wilder Papers.

26 “You remember our bicycle ride”: George Bassett Roberts to Martha, Oct. 22, 1971, Box 8, Martha Dodd Papers.

27 “You had had it”: Ibid.

28 “To my charming and lovely ex-wife”: George Bassett Roberts to Martha, n.d., Box 8, Martha Dodd Papers.

29 “I’m not at all sure”: George Bassett Roberts to Martha, Oct. 22, 1971, Box 8, Martha Dodd Papers.

30 A Harvard graduate: Conradi, 22.

1 “the most beautiful park”: Dodd to R. Walton Moore, March 22, 1936, 124.621/338, State/Decimal.

2 “A photograph of you”: Phillips to Dodd, July 31, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers.

3 “rolled in the gutter”: Martha to Thornton Wilder, Sept. 25, 1933, Wilder Papers.

4 “Gordon is an industrious career man”: Dodd, Diary , 16.

5 “come to Germany to rectify the wrongs”: Ibid., 13.

6 On his first full day in Berlin: Friedlander, 496.

7 He also learned that staff: Dodd to Hull, July 17, 1933, 124.626/95, State/Decimal.

8 The consul general now dispatched: For example, Messersmith to Hull, July 15, 1933, 125.1956/221, State/Decimal.

9 In notes for a personnel report: Dodd, Memorandum, 1933, Box 40 (1933-C), W. E. Dodd Papers.

10 “Evangelical Christian”: New York Times , July 1, 1933.

11 He also recognized: For a summary of the conflict between Hitler and Röhm, see Evans, Power , 20–26; Kershaw, Hubris , 505–7; and Wheeler-Bennett, Nemesis , 307–11.

12 admittedly homosexual: Röhm was outed when his letters to a medical researcher were made public. In one letter he wrote, “I make no secret of my inclinations,” and acknowledged that the Nazi Party had needed “to get used to this criminal peculiarity of mine.” He also wrote, “Today all women are an abomination to me, particularly those who pursue me with their love.”

Hancock, 625–29.

13 “adolescents in the great game”: Dodd to Newton Baker, Aug. 12, 1933, Box 40, W. E. Dodd Papers.

14 “These men wish to stop all Jewish persecution”: Ibid.

15 “his face,” she wrote: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 247.

16 “he was trying to train the Nazis”: Heineman, 66.

17 “He always believed”: Ibid., 82.

18 “most agreeable”: Dodd, Diary , 13.

19 “Hitler will fall into line”: Dodd to Newton Baker, Aug. 12, 1933, Box 40, W. E. Dodd Papers.

20 “It is not unlikely that [Zuckerman]”: Messersmith to Hull, Aug. 9, 1933, Messersmith Papers.

21 Messersmith added, “It is interesting to note”: Ibid., 4.

22 “It has been a favorite pastime of the SA men”: Messersmith to Hull, July 26, 1933, Messersmith Papers.