In the Garden of Beasts
Page 39
6 “twice the size of an average New York apartment”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 33–34.
7 “entirely done in gold”: Ibid., 34.
8 “We are convinced”: Dodd to Mrs. Alfred Panofsky, undated letter, provided by Gianna Sommi Panofsky.
9 “I love going there”: Fromm, 215.
10 “second home”: Ferdinand, 253.
11 “When the servants were out of sight”: Ibid., 253.
12 “If you don’t try to be more careful”: Ibid., 253.
13 “We love each other”: Martha to Thornton Wilder, Sept. 25, 1933, Wilder Papers.
14 “short, blond, obsequious”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 147.
15 “Now the hegira begins”: Carl Sandburg to Martha, n.d., Box 63, W. E. Dodd Papers.
16 They traveled first by car: Dodd, Diary, 22–23; Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 27; Reynolds, 118.
PART III: LUCIFER IN THE GARDEN
Chapter 11: Strange Beings
1 “an American citizen of a fine type”: Messersmith to Hull, Aug. 19, 1933, Messersmith Papers.
2 “very young, very energetic”: Messersmith to Hull, Aug. 25, 1933, Messersmith Papers.
3 “confessions of regret”: Dodd, Diary, 26–27.
4 “The excitement of the people”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 28.
Details of the episode described on this and following pages may be found mainly in Martha’s memoir, pages 27–32, and in Quentin Reynolds’s memoir, pages 118–21.
Martha’s account varies a bit from that of Reynolds. She claimed Reynolds agreed to write the story upon his return to Berlin, rather than cable it directly from Nuremberg, and that he would leave her and Bill out of the account. Reynolds, in a later memoir, reported that he did omit reference to the Dodds, but wrote the story while still in Nuremberg and filed it by mail rather than by cable. Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 29; Reynolds, 120.
5 “a short, squat, shaven-headed bully”: Kershaw, Hubris, 179.
6 Goebbels smiled: One problem with the Nazis’ adulation of Aryan perfection was that none of the regime’s most senior leaders fit the tall, blond, blue-eyed model. Hitler, when not ranting, looked to be a rather prosaic type, a middle manager of middle age with a strange mustache that evoked the American comic actor Charlie Chaplin. Göring was hugely overweight, and increasingly given to odd quirks of narcissistic display, such as painting his nails and changing his uniform several times a day. Himmler looked like a practitioner of the field in which he had been employed before being anointed by Hitler: chicken farming.
Goebbels’s appearance posed the greatest challenge, however. He was a shrunken figure with a crippled foot whose looks bore a startling resemblance to the grotesquely distorted caricatures that appeared regularly in Nazi hate literature. A bit of doggerel discreetly made the rounds in Berlin: “Dear God, make me blind / That I may Goebbels Aryan find.” Gallo, 29.
7 “The youth are bright faced”: Martha to Thornton Wilder, Dec. 14, 1933, Wilder Papers.
Many people held similar views, at least early on. I was struck in particular by the observations of Marsden Hartley, an American painter living in Berlin, who on Dec. 28, 1933, wrote, “It takes one’s breath really to see the young here all marching and marching of course as usual. One gets the feeling Germany is always marching—but O such health and vigor and physical rightness they possess.” Hartley, 11.
8 “I received a non-committal reply”: Dodd, Diary, 26.
9 “very pleasantly unconventional”: Ibid., 25.
Chapter 12: Brutus
1 “It was all over”: Dodd, Diary, 30–31.
2 “really doing wrong”: This quote and other details of the Kaltenborn episode come from Messersmith, “Attack on Kaltenborn,” unpublished memoir, Messersmith Papers; Kaltenborn’s correspondence in his archive at the Wisconsin Historical Society; and Kaltenborn’s memoir, Fifty Fabulous Years.
3 “This is no more to be expected”: Kaltenborn Papers.
4 “otherwise tried to prevent unfriendly demonstrations”: Dodd, Diary, 36.
5 “I was trying to find excuses”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 36.
6 “I felt there was something noble:” Ibid., 36–37.
7 “and that the press reports”: Ibid., 37.
8 “And when are you coming back”: Mowrer, Triumph, 226.
9 “And you too, Brutus”: Messersmith, “Some observations on my relations with the press,” unpublished memoir, 22, Messersmith Papers.
10 Mowrer “was for a time”: Dodd to Walter Lichtenstein, Oct. 26, 1933, Box 41, W. E. Dodd Papers.
11 “His experiences, however”: Ibid.
12 “Nowhere have I had such lovely friends”: Reynolds, Journalist’s Wife, 309.
13 “The protokoll arbiters”: Dodd to Hull, Oct. 19, 1933, Box 41, W. E. Dodd Papers.
14 “So today the show began”: Dodd, Diary, 33.
15 “Well, if at the last minute”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 236.
16 “You people in the Diplomatic Corps”: Dodd to Hull, Feb. 17, 1934 (unsent), Box 44, W. E. Dodd Papers.
17 “We simply cannot stand the pace”: Ibid.
18 “Infectious and delightful”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 233.
19 “one of the few men”: Ibid., 233.
20 An extraordinary newspaper photograph: A copy of this image can be found in Dodd, Embassy Eyes, opposite page 118.
21 “certainly looked flirtatious”: Schultz, “Sigrid Schultz Transcript-Part I,” 10, Box 2, Schultz Papers.
22 “you felt you could be in the same room”: Schultz, Catalogue of Memoirs, transcript fragment, Box 2, Schultz Papers.
23 “I was always rather favorably impressed”: Reminiscences of John Campbell White, Oral History Collection, Columbia University, 87–88.
24 “three times the size”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 221.
25 “To illustrate,” he wrote: Dodd to Hull, Oct. 19, 1933, Box 41, W. E. Dodd Papers.
26 “But,” he vowed: Ibid.
27 The embassy’s cupboard: Berlin Embassy Post Report (Revision), p. 10, 124.62/162, State/Decimal.
28 “We shall not use silver platters”: Dodd to Hull, Oct. 19, 1933, Box. 41, W. E. Dodd Papers.
29 “I can never adapt myself”: Dodd to Carl Sandburg, Nov. 21, 1934, Box 45, W. E. Dodd Papers.
30 “with attacks of headaches”: Dr. Wilbur E. Post to Dodd, Aug. 30, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers.
31 a Sonderzug: Metcalfe, 141.
32 Knight, Death and the Devil: Burden, 68.
Chapter 13: My Dark Secret
1 “I suppose I practiced”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 41.
2 She had a brief affair with Putzi: Conradi, 122.
3 “like a butterfly”: Vanden Heuvel, 248.
4 “You are the only person”: Armand Berard to Martha, n.d., Box 4, Martha Dodd Papers.
5 “Of course I remember”: Max Delbrück to Martha, Nov. 15, 1978, Box 4, Martha Dodd Papers.
6 “I often felt like saying something”: Messersmith to Jay Pierrepont Moffat, June 13, 1934, Messersmith Papers.
7 “she had behaved so badly”: Messersmith, “Goering,” unpublished memoir, 5, Messersmith Papers.
8 “That was not a house”: Brysac, 157.
9 “created a nervousness”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 52.
10 “the most sinister, scar-torn face”: Ibid., 52.
11 “a cruel, broken beauty”: Ibid., 53.
12 “Involved affairs with women”: Gisevius, 39.
13 “I felt at ease”: Ludecke, 654–55.
14 “He took a vicious joy”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 52.
15 “remarkably small”: Gellately, Gestapo, 44–45.
16 “Most of them were neither crazed”: Ibid., 59.
17 “One can evade a danger”: Quoted in Gellately, Gestapo, 129.
Even within the Gestapo there was fear, according to Hans Gisevius, author of the Gestapo memoir To the Bitter End: “For we were living in a den of murderers in which we did not even dare step ten or twenty feet across the hall to wash our han
ds without telephoning a colleague beforehand and informing him of our intention to embark on so perilous an expedition.” His boss advised him always to stay close to the wall and away from the banister when walking up a stairway, on the theory that this made it harder for an assassin above to get a clear shot. “Not for a moment was anyone’s life secure.” Gisevius, 50–51.
18 “like a mass of inanimate clay”: Gallo, 25–26.
19 “They ordered me to take off my pants”: Rürup, 92.
20 “The value of the SA”: Metcalfe, 133.
21 “the golden death of the Tiergarten”: Martha to Thornton Wilder, Nov. 10, 1934, Wilder Papers.
22 a “most indiscreet” young lady: Quoted in Wilbur Carr, Memorandum, June 5, 1933, Box 12, Carr Papers.
23 “he was constantly facing the muzzle of a gun”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 56.
24 “There began to appear before my romantic eyes”: Ibid., 53.
Chapter 14: The Death of Boris
1 “He had an unusual mouth”: Agnes Knickerbocker, in miscellaneous notes, Box 13, Folder 22, Martha Dodd Papers.
2 In a later unpublished account: Martha left a rich typescript account of her relationship with Boris that includes passages of dialogue and myriad observational details, such as who laughed at what remark, who frowned, and so forth. “Bright Journey into Darkness,” Box 14, Martha Dodd Papers.
3 “nigger-Jew jazz”: Kater, 15.
4 “seemed totally unintimidated”: Quoted in “Bright Journey into Darkness,” Box 14, Martha Dodd Papers.
5 “made some ceremony”: Agnes Knickerbocker, in miscellaneous notes, Box 13, Folder 22, Martha Dodd Papers.
Chapter 15: The “Jewish Problem”
1 It began amiably enough: My account of Dodd’s meeting with Neurath is derived from Dodd’s Diary, pages 35–37, and from his seven-page Memorandum, Sept. 14, 1933, Box 59, W. E. Dodd Papers.
2 “No doubt can be entertained”: Leon Dominian to Hull and to Berlin Embassy, Sept. 15, 1933, 862.113/49 GC, State/Decimal.
3 On one notorious occasion: Messersmith to Hull, July 29, 1933, Messersmith Papers.
Chapter 16: A Secret Request
1 “this disagreeable and difficult business”: Dodd to Samuel F. Bemis, Aug. 7, 1933, Box 40, W. E. Dodd Papers.
2 “Herewith I am informing you”: Alfred Panofsky to Dodd, Sept. 18, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers.
3 Dodd’s first draft: For first and final drafts, see Dodd to Alfred Panofsky, Sept. 20, 1933, Box 41, W. E. Dodd Papers.
4 “There was too much noise”: Memorandum, n.d. (c. 1935), Box 47, W. E. Dodd Papers.
5 “happy mix of courage”: Klemperer, Language, 32, 43, 48, 60.
6 Another attack occurred against an American: Dodd, Diary, 44; Messersmith to William Phillips, Oct. 19, 1933, Messersmith Papers.
7 The Ministry of Posts: Miller, 53.
8 “There has been nothing in social history”: Messersmith to William Phillips, Sept. 29, 1933, Messersmith Papers.
9 “forcible intervention from the outside”: Ibid.
10 “There is nothing here”: Dodd to Edward M. House, Oct. 31, 1933, Box 41, W. E. Dodd Papers.
11 “It defeats my history work”: Dodd to Jane Addams, Oct. 16, 1933, Box 40, W. E. Dodd Papers.
12 “Please do not refer to others”: Dodd to Hull, Oct. 4, 1933, Box 41, W. E. Dodd Papers; Hull to Dodd, Oct. 16, 1933, Box 41, W. E. Dodd Papers.
Chapter 17: Lucifer’s Run
1 “harshness and callousness”: Diels, 328–31; also, Crankshaw, 51–61.
2 “From his retreat in Bohemia”: Quoted in Crankshaw, 56.
3 “very much the German Frau”: Brysac, 200.
4 “She was slow to speak”: Unpublished Memoir, p. 9 (marked as p. 8), Box 13, Martha Dodd Papers.
5 While abroad he was recruited: Dallin, 236.
6 Arvid had “gone Nazi”: Brysac, x.
7 “dove tans, soft blues”: Ibid., 111.
8 “to build up a little colony”: Martha to Thornton Wilder, Sept. 25, 1933, Wilder Papers.
9 “Martha, you know that I love you”: Mildred Fish Harnack to Martha, May 4 (probably 1934), Box 5, Martha Dodd Papers.
10 “I prized these post-cards”: Unpublished Memoir, p. 4 (marked as p. 3), Box 13, Martha Dodd Papers.
11 “the kind of person”: Martha to Thornton Wilder, Dec. 14, 1933, Wilder Papers.
12 “And there I sit on the sofa”: Quoted in Brysac, 419.
13 “the astonishment”: Ibid., 146.
14 “the capital’s jeunesse dorée”: Ibid., 154.
Chapter 18: Warning from a Friend
1 “to hear amusing conversation”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 86.
2 her birthday party: In her memoir, Martha makes reference to parties on pages 43–45 and 65–66. They appear to be the same party. The late Philip Metcalfe, in his book 1933, likewise links these references and states with certainty that they apply to her birthday party. He had the benefit of having corresponded with Martha Dodd well before her death in 1990. Metcalfe, 195–96.
3 “young, heel-clicking, courteous”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 44.
4 “That is not the sort of music”: Ibid., 67. The “Horst Wessel Song” was indeed a point of sensitivity for hard-core Nazis. One bandleader who dared to lead a jazz rendition of the song was compelled to flee Germany. Kater, 23.
5 “to continue to persuade”: Dodd to Leo Wormser, Sept. 26, 1933, Box 43, W. E. Dodd Papers.
6 “It was because I had seen so much injustice”: Dodd to Jane Addams, Oct. 16, 1933, Box 40, W. E. Dodd Papers.
7 “the President told me”: Dodd to William Phillips, Oct. 14, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers.
8 “In times of great stress”: For the text of Dodd’s speech, see enclosure in Dodd to Roosevelt, Oct. 13, 1933, Roosevelt Correspondence.
9 Schacht “applauded extravagantly”: Ibid.
10 “When the thing was over”: Dodd to Hull, Oct. 19, 1933, Box 41, W. E. Dodd Papers.
11 “Silent, but anxious Germany”: Ibid.
12 “I enjoyed all these nicely disguised hints”: Fromm, 132.
13 “The situation is very difficult”: Metcalfe, 164–65.
14 “My interpretation of this”: Dodd to Roosevelt, Oct. 14, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers. (Note: A handwritten version of this letter in Roosevelt’s correspondence bears the date Oct. 13, 1933. It seems clear that the typed version, dated Oct. 14, is the final and correctly dated copy.)
15 “to constitute a serious affront”: Dodd to Hull, Oct. 13, 1933, 362.1113/13, State/Decimal.
16 “as a sort of rebuke for my speech”: Dodd, Diary, 47.
17 “that some embarrassing interpretations”: Dodd to Roosevelt, Oct. 14, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers.
18 “in the hope that you”: Dodd to Phillips, Oct. 14, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers.
19 “the schoolmaster lecturing his pupils”: Moffat, Diary, Oct. 12, 1933.
20 “that I was in doubt whether any words”: William Phillips to Dodd, Nov. 27, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers.
21 “It was delightful to hear the President”: Edward M. House to Dodd, Oct. 21, 1933, Box 41, W. E. Dodd Papers.
22 “It was not the address of a thinker”: Dodd, Diary, 48.
23 “That the allies at this time”: Shirer, Rise, 211.
Chapter 19: Matchmaker
1 There had been talk of numerous liaisons: For details on Hitler’s love life, see Kershaw, Hubris, 284–85, 351–55.
2 his “clammy possessiveness”: Ibid., 354.
3 “Believe me,” she said: Ibid., 187.
4 “Hitler needs a woman”: Conradi, 121.
PART IV: HOW THE SKELETON ACHES
Chapter 20: The Führer’s Kiss
1 “neat and erect”: Dodd, Diary, 49.
2 “Chauffeureska”: Kershaw, Hubris, 485.
3 King Kong was a favorite: Ibid., 485.
4 “Hitler looked like a suburban hairdresser”: Hanfstaengl, 22.
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bsp; 5 First Dodd raised the subject: Dodd, Diary, 49.
6 “Perhaps I was too frank”: Dodd to Roosevelt, Oct. 28, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers.
7 “The total effect of the interview”: Dodd to Hull, Oct. 17, 1933, 362.1113/19 GC, State/Decimal.
8 “The Chancellor’s assurances”: Messersmith to William Phillips, Oct. 19, 1933 (pp. 12–13), Messersmith Papers.
9 “appointed to change the history of Europe”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 63–65.
10 “that Hitler was not an unattractive man”: Ibid., 65.
11 “I was a little angry”: Ibid., 65.
12 “By promoting me”: Diels to Himmler, Oct. 10, 1933, vol. 11, p. 142, Archives of the Holocaust.
Chapter 21: The Trouble with George
1 “For the first time, therefore”: Henry P. Leverich, “The Prussian Ministry of Justice Presents a Draft for a New German Penal Code,” Dec. 21, 1933, GRC 862.0441/5, State/Decimal.
2 “to permit killing incurables”: Dodd, Memorandum, Oct. 26, 1933, 862.0441/3, State/Decimal.
3 “could remember neither the name”: Enclosed with Dodd to Hull, Nov. 13, 1933, GRC 362.1113 Kaltenborn, H.V./5, State Decimal.
4 “Wealthy staff people”: Dodd to Hull, Oct. 19, 1933, Box 41, W. E. Dodd Papers.
5 “It would seem that in view”: D. A. Salmon to William Phillips, Nov. 1, 1933, enclosed in Phillips to Dodd, Nov. 4, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers.
6 “the extravagance in the telegraphic business”: William Phillips to Dodd, Nov. 4, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers.
7 “Do not think that Mr. Salmon’s comparison”: Dodd to William Phillips, Nov. 17, 1933, Box 42, W. E. Dodd Papers.