Erik Larson - In the Garden of Beasts

3 “righteous aloofness”: Dodd to William Phillips, Dec. 14, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers. This letter, with the same date as the letter in the preceding citation, is nonetheless markedly different in content and form. It is typed, and marked “Personal and Confidential.”

4 “As usual,” Moffat wrote: Moffat, Diary, Dec. 26, 1933.

5 “I hope it will not be difficult for you”: William Phillips to Dodd, Jan. 3, 1934, Box 45, W. E. Dodd Papers.

6 “I confess I am at a loss”: Ibid.

7 “would limit a little the favoritisms”: Dodd to Roosevelt, Jan. 3, 1934, Box 45, W. E. Dodd Papers.

1 Early in January, Boris arranged a date: Once again I have relied heavily on Martha’s unpublished recollections about Boris, “Bright Journey into Darkness.” And once again, this memoir provides invaluable detail. When I say Boris smiled as he opened the door to his room at the embassy, it is because Martha says he smiled at that moment. Whether her recollections are truly accurate, who can say? But she was there, and I am more than happy to rely on her testimony. Box 14, Martha Dodd Papers.

2 if your goal was seduction: MacDonogh, 31.

1 “How is Uncle Adolf?”: Memorandum, David Schweitzer to Bernhard Kahn, March 5, 1934, vol. 10, pp. 20–30, Archives of the Holocaust . See also Grunberger, 27.

2 One German dreamed that an SA man: Peukert, 237.

3 “Here was an entire nation”: Brysac, 186.

4 “constant fear of arrest”: Johnson and Reuband, 288, 355, 360.

5 Some 32 percent recalled telling anti-Nazi jokes: Ibid., 357.

6 “whisper almost inaudibly”: 277. Martha does not refer to Mildred by name in this passage—in fact she never does so in her memoir, for fear of exposing Mildred and her nascent resistance group to danger—but many of Martha’s references in Through Embassy Eyes , when triangulated with other material from her papers in the Library of Congress, clearly are to Mildred. Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 277.

7 One day he invited her to his office: Ibid., 53.

8 “a sinister smile crossed his lips”: Ibid., 55.

9 He filled a cardboard box with cotton: Ibid., 55.

10 “the German glance”: Evans, Power , 105; Grunberger, 338.

11 Whenever he appeared: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 56, 145, 147, 274, 278.

Also, see “Bright Journey into Darkness,” Box 14, Martha Dodd Papers.

12 “There is no way on earth”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 277.

13 “As time went on, and the horror increased”: Ibid., 368.

14 rudimentary codes: Ibid., 276.

15 Her friend Mildred used a code for letters home: Brysac, 130.

Another example: In Beyond Tears , Irmgard Litten writes of the tribulations of her son, Hans, at the hands of the Gestapo, and tells how she deployed a code in which “the first letter of the fourth word of each sentence would serve as a key to the message.” Litten, 60.

16 “It seems absolutely unbelievable”: Peter Olden to Dodd, Jan. 30, 1934, Box 45, W. E. Dodd Papers.

17 “to find out the contents of confidential reports”: Raymond Geist to Hull, March 8, 1934, 125.1953/655, State/Decimal.

18 “I shall be walking at 11:30”: Dodd, Diary , 63.

19 “Could we meet tomorrow morning”: Sir Eric Phipps to Dodd, May 25, 1935, Box 47, W. E. Dodd Papers.

20 Despite the toll: Nonetheless, Messersmith claimed in his unpublished memoir that “on two occasions I was almost run over by a Gestapo car or an SS or SA car.” Both incidents occurred as he tried crossing the street to the Esplanade Hotel; both involved powerful cars speeding from a narrow alley. He believed the drivers had been waiting for him. Messersmith, “Additional paragraph to memorandum on attempts on my life,” unpublished memoir, Messersmith Papers.

21 “If I had been with people who had been brave”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes , 54.

22 “bordered on the hysterical”: Ibid., 54.

13 “I often felt such terror”: Ibid., 54.

1 “more living space for our surplus population”: Kershaw, Hubris , 504–5; Gallo, 81–82.

2 “That was a new Versailles Treaty”: Gallo, 83.

3 “We’ll have to let the thing ripen”: Kershaw, Hubris , 505. Kershaw quotes Röhm as also saying, “What the ridiculous corporal declared doesn’t apply to us. Hitler has no loyalty and has at least to be sent on leave. If not with, then we’ll manage the thing without Hitler.” Also see Gallo, 83, for a slightly different translation.

1 “I stated that I was sorry”: Hull, Memorandum, Feb. 29, 1934, State/Foreign. For a full account of the mock trial, see Anthes.

On May 17, 1934, a counter-rally took place in Madison Square Garden that drew twenty thousand “Nazi friends,” as the New York Times put it in a front-page story the next day. The meeting was organized by a group called Friends of the New Germany, with the stated purpose of opposing “the unconstitutional Jewish boycott” of Germany.

2 “do something to prevent this trial”: John Hickerson, Memorandum, March 1, 1934, State/Foreign.

3 “that if the circumstances were reversed”: Ibid.

4 “I replied,” Hickerson wrote: Ibid.

5 the speakers “were not in the slightest”: Hull, Memorandum, March 2, 1934, State/Foreign.

6 “noticed and resented”: Dodd, Diary , 86.

7 “malicious demonstration”: Memorandum, “The German Foreign Office to the American Embassy,” enclosed with Dodd to Hull, March 8, 1934, State/Foreign.

8 “nobody could suppress a private or public meeting”: Dodd, Diary , 87.

9 “I reminded the Minister”: Dodd to Hull, March 6, 1934, State/Foreign.

10 “an extraordinary impression”: Ibid.

11 “that nothing which was to be said”: William Phillips, Memorandum, March 7, 1934, State/Foreign.

12 Here too Phillips demurred: Ibid.

13 “take the matter under consideration”: Ibid.

14 The trial took place as planned: New York Times , March 8, 1934.

15 “We declare that the Hitler government”: Ibid.

16 “no comment other than to re-emphasize”: Hull to Dodd, March 8, 1934, State/Foreign.

17 First Dodd asked Hitler: My account of Dodd’s meeting with Hitler draws its details mainly from Dodd’s Diary , pages 88–91, and his six-page “Memorandum of a Conversation with Chancellor Hitler,” Box 59, W. E. Dodd Papers.

18 On March 12 an official: Dodd to Roosevelt, Aug. 15, 1934, Box 45, W. E. Dodd Papers; Dallek, 227.

19 “Dodd made no impression”: Hanfstaengl, 214.

20 “Ambassador Dodd, quite without instruction”: Moffat, Diary, March 7, 1934.

21 “I do not think it a disgrace”: Dodd, Diary , 92.

22 “such offensive and insulting acts”: Hull, Memorandum, March 13, 1934, State/Foreign.

23 “I stated further that I trusted”: Ibid.

24 “was not feeling as cool as the snow”: Hull, Memorandum, March 23, 1934, State/Foreign. This is one of the few official memoranda from these early days of America’s relationship with Nazi Germany that makes one want to stand up and cheer—cheer, that is, in a manner as understated and oblique as Hull’s prose. Alas, it was only a brief matchbook flare on behalf of liberty.

Undersecretary William Phillips was present for this meeting and was startled by the “violent language” Luther unleashed. “The Secretary,” Phillips wrote in his diary, “was very calm and caustic in his replies and I am not sure that Doctor Luther got the underlying tone of coolness.” Phillips added that if it had been up to him he would have told Luther to leave and come back “after he had cooled down.” Phillips, Diary, March 23, 1934.