In the Garden of Beasts

Dodd finally presents his papers to Hindenburg. They chat, and Dodd gets the impression the aging president isn’t entirely onboard with the Nazis. As Dodd’s party departs, regular army troops line the street and salute.

American radio commentator, HV Kaltenborn—whose broadcasts argue strenuously that reports of German anti-Jewish atrocities are wildly overblown—goes shopping in Berlin with his family. On the street, they see a Storm Trooper parade but don’t offer the Hitler salute. Troopers and pedestrians accost them and knock down Kaltenborn’s son; police ignore the scuffle. Kaltenborn complains to the American consulate: “For Messersmith, it was a troubling but darkly sublime moment" (104).

Correspondent Mowrer, a thorn in Dodd’s side, departs for Tokyo with his family. As he leaves, Mowrer turns to Messersmith and says, “And you too, Brutus" (106), for his betrayal in having arranged for the correspondent’s departure. Messersmith, stung, feels miserable about it.

Now officially the ambassador, Dodd must attend an endless stream of diplomatic events. The parties are lavish, and the guests bejeweled. Goebbels sometimes attends; he is known for his wit, and he and Dodd often engage in “a brisk repartee of quips and ironic comment" (108). Göring is well liked, but, with his huge girth and penchant for new uniforms, is “hard to take seriously" (108). Dodd’s embassy parties are more modest, “a disappointment to his wealthier junior men, who threw lavish parties at their own expense" (111). 

Martha, "sought after by men of all ranks, ages, and nationalities," is not yet officially divorced, but impishly she omits this detail with her paramours, calling it “my dark secret" (113). Martha goes falcon hunting with Göring and "had a brief affair with Putzi Hanfstaengl" (114). She also has a short romance with visiting writer Thomas Wolfe and a dalliance with biophysicist and future Nobel laureate, Max Delbrück, among many other flings.

Messersmith worries that the gossip surrounding Martha, particularly her dates with Nazi officials, may cause informants to think twice before telling secrets to Dodd. Martha meets “Rudolf Diels, the young chief of the Gestapo" (115) and is attracted to him. Diels can send a chill through a roomful of people just by entering: "Martha loved being known as the woman who slept with the devil" (118-19). For his part, Diels—who faces his own fears amid the swirl of Nazi intrigue—is most relaxed in her company. He confesses to her that he and the topmost Nazi leaders all spy on each other. 

Martha meets Boris Winogradov, a functionary at the Russian embassy, “a doomed Russian who would shape the rest of her life" (120). On their first date, he plays her a recording of “The Death of Boris” from the opera Boris Godunov. They hit it off and begin a relationship but keep it quiet because the US hasn’t yet recognized the Soviet government: “Some nights Martha and Boris would join the correspondents gathered at Die Taverne, where Boris was always welcomed" for his openness and lack of “slavish adherence to party doctrine" (125).

The couple goes for long drives, has picnics in the country, and contemplates marriage. Martha doesn’t know, however, that Boris “was no mere first secretary of embassy, but rather an operative for Soviet intelligence" (127). 

Dodd meets with Foreign Minister Neurath to protest the recent acts of violence against Americans. Dodd adds that he has tried to moderate press reports but that some information got out “and did Germany incalculable injury" (129). He warns that, if the perpetrators remain unpunished, America might have to “publish a statement which would greatly damage the rating of Germany all over the world" (129).

Neurath replies that he has broached the topic with Hitler and Göring, and that both “would use their influence to prevent further attacks" (129). Dodd pushes: “You cannot expect world opinion of your conduct to moderate so long as eminent leaders like Hitler and Goebbels announce from platforms, as in Nuremberg, that all Jews must be wiped off the earth" (130). As he leaves, Dodd asks, “Shall we have a war?” (130).

German police begin stopping travelers and searching them, they claim, “for weapons, foreign propaganda, and evidence of communist resistance,” but rumor has it that they’re really looking for “copies of Swiss and Austrian newspapers carrying allegations that Hitler himself might have Jewish ancestry" (131). 

The Dodd’s landlord, Panofsky, brings his wife and children to the house to live on the fourth floor. Dodd now understands Panofsky’s real purpose in leasing the rest of the house to the American ambassador—as a hedge against abuse by the German government—and Dodd considers it bad faith.

As a historian, Dodd believes most players on the world stage are rational, but the new German government is “neither civil nor coherent” (134). The sudden arrests and searches, and the leaders’ threat-filled speeches, may be “a deliberate effort to generate a kind of daily suspense […] that helped keep people in line” (134).

Another American is assaulted for “failing to acknowledge an SA parade” (135). Dodd issues protest letters but gets no reply. Privately, he laments to friends that he is too busy to work on his book yet still unable to affect events in Germany and that his offer to serve there may have been a mistake.

The German government passes more anti-Jewish laws. Messersmith writes to Undersecretary Phillips: “It is definitely the aim of the Government, no matter what it may say to the outside or in Germany, to eliminate the Jews from German life” (136). Messersmith fears that Germany will soon be so united under the Nazis that outside powers won’t be able to stop the atrocities. He also worries that Germany will quickly become “a real and grave threat to the world” (136).

Increasingly discouraged, Dodd asks for a three-month leave early in 1934 “so that he could spend time on his farm and do some teaching in Chicago” (137). The embassy grants his leave. 

In October 1933, while Diels is at work, an SS squad invades his house and retrieves his private papers. Diels knows this is due to political infighting between his mentor, Göring, and Heinrich Himmler. He marshals a team of Berlin police, surrounds the local SS stronghold, arrests the perpetrators, and brings them to Gestapo headquarters for processing. A brief scuffle breaks out between Diels and the raid’s leader, Captain Herbert Packebusch, but Diels’s team prevails, and they place Packebusch in the house prison at Gestapo’s headquarters.

Göring and Himmler compromise; Göring transfers Diels from the head of the Gestapo to assistant police commissioner with the Berlin police. Later in October, Diels barely escapes arrest by the SS and flees to Czechoslovakia.

Martha becomes close to fellow expatriate Mildred Harnack: “Martha and Mildred came to see each other as kindred spirits, both deeply interested in writing" (142). They collaborate on a book column in an English-language paper; Mildred also "was earning extra pay typing the manuscript of the first volume of Dodd’s Old South" (142-43).

Mildred and her husband, Arvid, host frequent salons at home. There, a group of leftwing artists and intellectuals trade witticisms with Martha, the lone Nazi supporter. Unbeknownst to Martha, Arvid has lately become a spy for the Soviets.

Wishing to make her mark on Berlin society, Martha invites interesting and controversial guests to US embassy parties. “She grew bolder. The time had come, she knew, to start throwing some parties of her own" (144). 

Martha tries to start a salon at home, attended by intellectuals, but “it was a dull and, at the same time, tense afternoon" (145), and she doesn’t host another. For her birthday, Martha invites “a princess, a prince, several of her correspondent friends, and various officers of the SA and SS" (146). Putzi Hanfstaengl attends, as well as Hitler liaison, Hans Thomsen.

Martha plays “a recording of the Nazi hymn to Horst Wessel" (146), but Thomsen switches it off, scolding Martha for airing the song at a mixed gathering “in a flippant manner" (147). This incident “eroded—albeit slightly—her enthusiasm for the new Germany" (147).

Dodd gives a speech to the American Chamber of Commerce’s Berlin branch. He makes a veiled critique of Germany’s new rulers, citing incidents in history when overzealous regimes lead their countries to ruin. “His talk managed to stir a furor" (147). Though the Germans in attendance applaud strongly, Goebbels tries to ban publication of the speech. Higher-ups in the State Department criticize Dodd for speaking as “the schoolmaster lecturing his pupils" (151).

Hitler pulls out of a disarmament conference, arguing that Germany has a right to “equality of armaments”; in this way, Hitler “virtually nullified the Treaty of Versailles, clearly declaring his intention to rearm Germany" (152). Dodd decides he must meet with the German chancellor. 

Putzi Hanfstaengl decides that Hitler "would be a much more reasonable leader if only he fell in love" (154). Hitler has had paramours, including a cousin and the young Eva Braun, but Hitler’s own wife, Helena, tells Hanfstaengl that Hitler is “an absolute neuter, not a man" (154). Nevertheless, Hanfstaengl telephones Martha, telling her, “Hitler should have an American woman—a lovely woman could change the whole destiny of Europe,” concluding, “Martha […] you are the woman!” (154).