IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS by Erik Larson

After several other men have turned down the job, William Dodd abandons a life of academia to become U.S. ambassador to Germany in 1933.  This is a time in which Hitler is gaining more power and amassing a huge army in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles.  Despite the rising tensions, Dodd brings along his wife and two grown children to Berlin.  Dodd’s daughter, Martha, is quite the femme fatale and becomes cozy with an assortment of American writers, German Nazis, and one Russian who may have been a spy.  This book focuses largely on the writings of Martha and her father, both of whom at first downplay the potential for Hitler’s regime to survive and wreak havoc.  Roosevelt’s administration is even less concerned about the turmoil in Germany, and the metaphor about boiling a frog in warm water comes to mind:  the danger isn’t obvious until it’s too late to escape the consequences.  Eventually, Hitler’s ruthlessness and murder of Jews, rivals, and anyone who contradicts him become impossible for Dodd to ignore.  However, convincing the U.S. that Hitler intends to take over Europe is especially difficult, given that the State Department views Dodd’s appointment as a mistake.  His chief mission is to persuade Germany to repay their debt to the U.S. government, but Dodd knows they do not have the money.  Dodd is by no means heroic and even displays hints of racism and anti-Semitism. Nor does he have the personality or charisma to exert any influence on the German political situation, but probably no one else does, either.  He is, however, principled in his ultimate refusal to socialize with the Nazis, although the State Department argues that an ambassador’s job involves building a relationship with the government of the country to which he has been assigned.  Perhaps Dodd’s greatest achievement is his documentation of what he witnesses, both in his diary and in his correspondence.  He is, unfortunately, not a flashy protagonist, making the narrative rather dry, and we all know the horror of what eventually happens.  This may not be my favorite Erik Larson book, but, once again, he has turned a piece of history into a very readable, albeit terrifying, book.