In the Garden of Beasts (2011) (edit title/settings)

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• William E. Dodd: A mild-mannered history professor from Chicago; America’s ambassador to Hitler’s Germany. At first Dodd did not really believe what was happening under Hitler, but once he did, he stood up and tried to persuade others to see it so the evil could be stopped.
• Martha ("Mattie") Dodd: William Dodd's wife
• Martha Dodd: William's flamboyant daughter, initially a Nazi sympathizer. Writer & socialite.
• William ("Bill") Dodd, Jr.: Dodd's son
• Adolf Hitler: Reich Chancellor of Germany
• George S. Messersmith: American Consul General in Berlin - trying to catalogue all of the problems
• Boris Winogradov: Soviet Union diplomat / spy; married lover of Martha
• Hermann Goering: Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe in Nazi Germany, first head of the interior department in Prussia, which meant he was originally in charge of all police powers in and around Berlin before Himmler (qv) seized control of all police power.
• Heinrich Himmler: Powerful Nazi, in charge of the SS (Secret Police)
• Franklin D. Roosevelt: President of the United States
• Ernst Röhm: Head of SA (Sturm Abteilung) or Storm Troopers
• William Phillips: US diplomat for western Europe; Dodd's nemesis.
• Fritz Tobias: The Dodd's butler - seeming Communist sympathizer
• Hans "H.V." von Kaltenborn: US journalist. Initially thought that stories of Nazi excesses were exaggerated until a personal experience changed his mind.
• Joseph Goebbels: Hitler's propaganda chief
• Cordell Hull: FDR's Secretary of State.
• Woodrow Wilson: Former president and personal friend of William Dodd.
• Ernst Franz Sedgwick "Putzi" Hanfstaengl: Charming Nazi, confidant of Hitler and foreign press chief for the party
• Bella Fromm: Jewish journalist and friend of the Dodds.
• Paul von Hindenburg: President of Germany, tolerated or supported Hitler, but was also the last person who stood in Hitler's way to absolute power
• Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht: Head of Germany's Reichsbank with the authority to determine whether Germany would repay its debts US creditors.
• George Bassett Roberts: Martha Dodd's ex-husband and VP of a bank in New York City. She dated men in Germany without telling them her marriage to "Bassett" wasn't officially dissolved yet.
• Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise: Leader of American Jewish Congress
• Judge Joseph Proskauer: Leader of American Jewish Congress
• Eleanor Roosevelt: FDR's wife
• George Gordon: Counselor, second in command of Berlin Embassy.
• Mildred Fish Harnack: A representative of American Women's Club in Berlin and family friend of Dodd's. Wife of Arvid Harnack. The Harnack's were outspoken communists, which was dangerous for them living in Berlin.
• Sigrid Schultz: Chicago Tribune's (Martha's former employer) correspondent in chief for Central Europe in Berlin
• Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath: Minister of Foreign Affairs in Nazi Germany
• Rudolf Diels: Chief of Gestapo under Goring, but replaced by Himmler
• Edgar A. Mowrer: The most famous correspondent in Berlin and the center of a maelstrom controversy
• Theodor Eicke: Commander of the Dachau Concentration Camp
• Sir Eric Phipps: British Ambassador to Nazi Germany in Berlin
• Jay Pierrepont Moffat: Chief of Western European Affairs US State Department
• Reinhard Heydrich: Chief of Gestapo after Rudolf Diels
• Wilhelm Regendanz: Wealthy banker and a member of the Stahlhelm
• Monsieur Francois-Poncet: French ambassador to Germany in Berlin
• Hans Fallada: Pen name of German author Rudold Ditzen, made concessions to the Nazis so he could continue writing and publishing novels
• Franz von Papen: Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler. When he differed with Hitler, he was grateful to be under the protection of Hindenburg (qv)
• Elisabetta Cerruti: Wife of the Italian Ambassador
• Hans Luther: Germany's ambassador to the United States

Quotes edit see section history

• “Looking back on it all is like seeing someone you love go mad--and do horrible things.”

  Lillian Mowrer

• “The Gestapo's reputation for omniscience and malevolence arose from a confluence of two phenomena: first, a political climate in which merely criticizing the government could get one arrested, and second, the existence of a populace eager not just to step in line and become coordinated but also to use Nazi sensitivities to satisfy individual needs and salve jealousies.”

• “That's the trouble with nonfiction. One has to put aside what we all know -now- to be true, and try instead to accompany my two innocents through the world as they experienced it.”

  Erik Larson

• “That you have found me...among so many millions is the miracle of our time! And that I have found you, that is Germany's fortune!”

  Adolf Hitler

• “Goring, unaccustomed to challenge from anyone he deemed an inferior, grew angrier by the moment. Dimitrov calmly observed, ‘You are greatly afraid of my questions, are you not, Herr Minister?’ At this Goring lost control. He shouted, ‘You will be afraid when I catch you. You wait till I get you out of the power of the court, you crook!’ The judge ordered Dimitrov expelled; the audience erupted in applause; but it was Goring’s closing threat that made headlines. The moment was revealing in two ways—first, because it betrayed Goring’s fear that Dimitrov might indeed be acquitted, and second, because it provided a knife-slash glimpse into the irrational, lethal heart of Goring and the Hitler regime.”

• “The next day, an official of the foreign office called Fromm to convey his sorrow and an oblique message. ‘Frau Bella’, he said, ‘I am deeply shocked. I know how terrible your loss is. Frau von Huhn died of pneumonia.’ ‘Nonsense!’ Fromm snapped. ‘Who told you that? She committed--’ ‘Frau Bella, please understand, our friend had pneumonia. Further explanations are undesirable. In your interest, as well.’”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• why were the State Department and President Roosevelt so hesitant to express in frank terms how they really felt about Hitler at a time when such expressions clearly could have had a powerful effect on his prestige in the world?

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• HITLER’S PURGE WOULD BECOME KNOWN as “The Night of the Long Knives” and in time would be considered one of the most important episodes in his ascent, the first act in the great tragedy of appeasement. Initially, however, its significance was lost. No government recalled its ambassador or filed a protest; the populace did not rise in revulsion.

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• Beneath the surface, however, Germany had undergone a rapid and sweeping revolution that reached deep into the fabric of daily life. It had occurred quietly and largely out of easy view. At its core was a government campaign called Gleichschaltung—meaning “Coordination”—to bring citizens, government ministries, universities, and cultural and social institutions in line with National Socialist beliefs and attitudes.

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• Tiergarten, Berlin’s equivalent of Central Park. The name, in literal translation, meant “animal garden” or “garden of the beasts,” which harked back to its deeper past, when it was a hunting preserve for royalty.

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•                Cover

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• As of January 1933 only about 1 percent of Germany’s sixty-five million people were Jewish, and most lived in major cities, leaving a negligible presence throughout the rest of the country. Nearly a third—just over 160,000—lived in Berlin alone, but they constituted less than 4 percent of the city’s overall population of 4.2 million, and many lived in close-knit neighborhoods not typically included on visitors’ itineraries.

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• “the Jews should not be allowed to dominate economic or intellectual life in Berlin as they have done for a long time.” In this, Colonel House expressed a sentiment pervasive in America, that Germany’s Jews were at least partly responsible for their own troubles.

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• Germans denounced one another with such gusto that senior Nazi officials urged the populace to be more discriminating as to what circumstances might justify a report to the police. Hitler himself acknowledged, in a remark to his minister of justice, “we are living at present in a sea of denunciations and human meanness.”

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• sinecure, a job that was not too demanding yet that would provide stature and a living wage and, most important, leave him plenty of time to write—this despite his recognition that serving as a diplomat was not something to which his character was well suited.

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• obsequious. The food was good, she judged, but heavy, classically German, and demanded an after-dinner walk. Outside, the Dodds turned left and walked along Bellevuestrasse through the shadows of trees and the penumbrae

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Berlin
• Washington, DC
• Adlon Hotel
• Dachau
• Tiergarten
• Tiergartenstrasse: Tiergartenstrasse 27a; Dodd's residence
• Hamburg
• University of Chicago: William Dodd was a professor here when FDR's call came requesting that he assume the ambassadorship to Germany.
• Chicago

Organizations edit see section history

• SA: Sturm Abteilung. A paramilitary arm of the Nazi party, prominent from the early 1920s until 1934, headed by Captain Ernst Rohm. Its purge in 1934 is both prominent in "Garden of the Beasts" and in the history of Nazi control of Germany. At the time, few people fully realized the significance of the purge and massacre of prominent SA leaders and members.
• SS: Schutzstaffel. A military and security arm of the Nazi party. Originally founded in 1925 as a body guard for Hitler, under Heinrich Himmler it evolved into an elite organization that included a parallel German army, all police powers, intelligence and counter-intelligence and concentration camp supervision including death squads that executed Jews, gypsies and political prisoners.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Erik Larson (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: E748/D6L37 2011
• Dewey: 943.086

Notes for Parents edit see section history

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Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Nonfiction › True Accounts › True Crime
• Books › History › Europe › Germany
• Books › History › World

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Erik Larson: The author's website.

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