Erik Larson - In the Garden of Beasts

5 “Have you lost even your literary interest”: Martha to Thornton Wilder, Dec. 14, 1933, Wilder Papers.

6 “On one occasion the hilarity was so great”: Wilbur Carr took careful notes on his conversation with Raymond Geist, and reported them in a “Strictly Confidential” memorandum dated June 5, 1935, Box 12, Carr Papers.

7 “There appears to be a spare typewriter”: John Campbell White to Jay Pierrepont Moffat, Nov. 17, 1933, White Papers.

8 “a curious individual”: Jay Pierrepont Moffat to John Campbell White, March 31, 1934, White Papers.

9 “Permanent retirement from the post”: Dodd to William Phillips, Dec. 4, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers.

10 “I cannot imagine who gave the Tribune”: William Phillips to Dodd, Dec. 22, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers.

11 “an inside glimpse of conditions”: Phillips, Diary, Dec. 20, 1933.

12 “We went over it from all angles”: Moffat, Diary, Dec. 14, 1933.

13 “much concerned at letters”: Moffat, Diary, Feb. 13, 1934.

14 “Our mutual friend G.S.M.”: George Gordon to Dodd, Jan. 22, 1934, Box 44, W. E. Dodd Papers.

15 Lochner told Dodd: Details of Lochner’s plot to save Dimitrov come from Metcalfe, 232–34; Dodd, Diary , 65–66; Conradi, 136–38.

16 “high treason, insurrectionary arson”: Tobias, 268.

17 “We were sitting together drinking our coffee”: Lochner, Dec. 26, 1933, Round Robin Letters, Box 6, Lochner Papers.

18 Diels’s precise motives cannot be known: Wheaton, 430. Though he found the camps repellent, Diels was not being entirely altruistic. He recognized that an amnesty would have great political value, burnishing Hitler’s image both inside and outside Germany. But clearly he also knew that an amnesty would be an affront to Himmler, whose SS ran the camps, and that on that score alone the idea would appeal to Göring. Hitler and Göring approved the idea, but insisted that Dachau be exempted, and limited the number of prisoners to be included. They gave Diels authority to decide who would be freed. Göring announced the decree, and said that a total of five thousand prisoners would be released. In fact, the amnesty was not so wide-ranging as Göring’s announcement suggested. A number of camps outside Prussia also were exempted, and the overall total of prisoners released was lower than what Göring had promised. Moreover, plans existed to expand the capacity of the camps in Prussia alone by as many as eight thousand additional prisoners. Crankshaw, 45–47; Wheaton, 429–30.

19 “The Secret Police Chief did”: Dodd, Diary , 67.

20 “One might think,” he wrote: Ibid., 66.

1 “Thank you for telling me”: Tobias, 284.

2 “Herr Hitler seemed to feel a genuine sympathy”: Phipps, 40.

3 “Hitler is improving definitely”: Martha to Thornton Wilder, Dec. 14, 1933, Wilder Papers.

4 The official tally of unemployed workers: Fritzsche, 57; Miller, 66–67, 136.

5 Within the Reich Ministry of the Interior: Krausnick et al., 419.

One more sign of normalcy was the way the government dealt with an attack against an American that occurred on Jan. 15, 1934. On that cold, rain-soaked Monday a U.S. citizen named Max Schussler, working in Berlin as a landlord, stumbled into the consulate on Bellevuestrasse “bleeding profusely,” according to an account by Raymond Geist, who was serving as acting consul general while Messersmith was in America. Schussler was Jewish. The next morning, after consultation with Dodd, Geist went to Gestapo headquarters and lodged a protest directly with Rudolf Diels. Within forty-eight hours the assailant was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to seven months in prison. What’s more, news of the arrest and punishment received broad play over radio and in newspapers. Geist reported to Washington, “It is very gratifying to see how promptly the German authorities acted…. I believe that these attacks will now definitely cease.” He was wrong, as time would show, but for the moment at least there seemed to be a new effort by the government to win America’s goodwill.

There was an unwholesome element to Geist’s final conversation with Diels. The Gestapo chief complained that Schussler and certain other abused Americans were “not altogether a desirable lot,” as Geist recalled Diels’s remarks. The innuendo was clear, and Geist’s temper spiked. “I told him,” he wrote, “that we would never consider any other fact than that a man was an American citizen, and that the question of race or origin was entirely beside the point, and that any American citizen was entitled to the full protection of the American Government.” Geist to Hull, Jan. 16, 1934, FP 362.1113 Schussler, Max/1, State/Decimal; Geist to Hull, Jan. 18, 1934, 362.1113 Schussler, Max/8 GC, State/Decimal.

6 “More atrocity reports”: Gilbert L. MacMaster to Clarence E. Pickett, Feb. 12, 1934, vol. 2, pp. 58–59, Archives of the Holocaust .

Deschner, in his biography of Reinhard Heydrich, writes that in these early days, “Jews were not imprisoned in Dachau by virture of their being Jews but because of their having been politically active opponents of National Socialism, or communists, or journalists hostile to NS or ‘reactionaries.’” Deschner, 79.

7 “Tolerance means weakness”: Noakes and Pridham, 284–86.

8 “Any pity whatsoever for ‘enemies of the State’”: Krausnick et al., 433.

9 “Outwardly Berlin presented”: Memorandum, David Schweitzer to Bernhard Kahn, March 5, 1934, vol. 10, pp. 20–30, Archives of the Holocaust .

10 Some ten thousand Jews: Dippel, 114; Breitman and Kraut, 25.

11 “Before the end of 1933”: Testimony of Raymond Geist, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, vol. 4, Document No. 1759-PS, Avalon Project, Yale University Law School.

Germany’s supposedly secret effort to rearm itself in contravention of the Treaty of Versailles was, to Berliners, no secret at all, as became evident in the rise of a popular joke. It went like this:

A man complains to a friend that he doesn’t have the money to buy a carriage for his new baby. The friend happens to work in a carriage factory and offers to sneak out enough parts to allow the new father to build one on his own. When the two men see each other again, the new father is still carrying his baby.

His friend the factory worker is perplexed, and asks the new father why he’s not using his newly built baby carriage.

“Well, you see,” the father replies, “I know I’m very dense and don’t understand much about mechanics, but I’ve put that thing together three times and each time it turns out to be a machine gun!” Wheeler-Bennett, Nemesis , 336.

12 “Any one motoring out in the country”: John Campbell White to Jay Pierrepont Moffat, Nov. 27, 1933, Carr Papers.

13 “You must know that I am grateful”: Gallo, 7–8; Gisevius, 171. Gallo and Gisevius present two slightly different translations of Hitler’s greeting. I chose Gallo’s, but for no particular reason.

14 Soon afterward, however, Hitler ordered: Diels, 385–89; Diels, Affidavit, in Stackelberg and Winkle, 133–34; Wheaton, 439; Metcalfe, 235–36.

15 “I am confident,” he wrote: Kershaw, Myth , 63.

16 Röhm, the Hausherr , or host: Seating chart, Feb. 23, 1934, “Invitations,” Box 1, Martha Dodd Papers.

1 “to read a whole series of letters”: Moffat, Diary, Dec. 26, 1933.

2 the number of Jews on his staff: Dodd to William Phillips, Dec. 14, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers. Dodd wrote this letter longhand, and added a note at the top, “For you alone.”