by Erik Larson
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20 Despite the toll: Nonetheless, Messersmith claimed in his unpublished memoir that “on two occasions I was almost run over by a Gestapo car or an SS or SA car.”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 Messersmith, “Additional paragraph to memorandum on attempts on my life,” unpublished memoir, Messersmith Papers.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.
Chapter 32: Storm Warning
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.
Chapter 33: “Memorandum of a Conversation with Hitler”
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.
25 “tone of asperity”: Hull to John Campbell White, March 30, 1934, State/Foreign.
26 “to communicate to the Government of the German Reich”: Quoted in Spear, 216.
27 “in an embarrassing position”: R. Walton Moore, Memorandum, Jan. 19, 1934, State/Foreign.
28 “exerted his influence”: Spear, 216.
Chapter 34: Diels, Afraid
1 “on all sides of the fence at once”: Metcalfe, 201.
2 “We didn’t take too seriously what he said”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 134.
3 “You are sick?”: Diels, 283. Also quoted in Metcalfe, 236.
4 Once again Diels left the country: Metcalfe, 237; Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 134.
5 “a pathetic passive-looking creature”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 134.
6 “I was young and reckless enough”: Ibid., 136.
7 “like a frightened rabbit”: Ibid., 135.
8 “In some ways the danger”: Ibid., 135–36.
Chapter 35: Confronting the Club
1 “on a short leave”: New York Times, March 24, 1934; Dodd to “family,” April 5, 1934, Box 61, W. E. Dodd Papers.
2 “handsome limousine”: Dodd, Diary, 93.
3 “duty, readiness for sacrifice”: Hitler to Roosevelt, reproduced in Hull to John Campbell White, March 28, 1934, State/Foreign.
4 “strange message”: Phillips, Diary, March 27, 1934.
5 “to prevent our falling into the Hitler trap”: Moffat, Diary, March 24–25, 1934.
6 “who have freely and gladly made heroic efforts”: Roosevelt to Hitler, reproduced in Hull to John Campbell White, March 28, 1934, State/Foreign.
7 “We sought to sidestep the impression”: Phillips, Diary, March 27, 1934.
8 “there might easily be a little civil war”: Dodd to Mrs. Dodd, March 28, 1934, Box 44, W. E. Dodd Papers.
9 “to quiet things if possible”: Ibid. Also, see Dodd, Diary, 95; Dallek, 228.
10 “Louis XIV and Victoria style”: Dodd, Diary, 94; Dallek, 231.
11 “house with a hundred rooms”: It was this mansion that became the new location of the Cosmos Club, after Welles sold it to the club in 1953. Gellman, 106–7, 395.
12 Indeed, his lecture: R. Walton Moore to Dodd, May 23, 1934, Box 45, W. E. Dodd Papers.
Moore compliments Dodd on his presentation to the group, known as the Personnel Board, but adds, with a good deal of understatement, “I am not at all certain that some of the members of the Board were pleased to hear it.”
13 had begun to express real hostility: For example, see Moffat, Diary, Dec. 16, 1933; Phillips, Diary, June 25, 1934.
14 “He is… by no means a clear thinker.”: Moffat, Diary, March 17, 1934.
15 “Their chief protector”: Dodd to Mrs. Dodd, March 28, 1934, Box 44, W. E. Dodd Papers.
Chapter 36: Saving Diels
1 “obviously in a greatly perturbed situation”: Messersmith, “Goering,” unpublished memoir, 3–8, Messersmith Papers.
2 A photograph of the moment: This photograph is one of many in a unique exhibit in Berlin that tracks the growth of the Gestapo and of Nazi terror in a block-long outdoor, an
d partly subterranean, display erected along the excavated wall of what once was the basement and so-called house prison of Gestapo headquarters. Certain locations in the world seem to concentrate darkness: the same wall once served as the foundation for a segment of the Berlin Wall.
3 “The infliction of physical punishment”: Quoted in Richie, 997; Metcalfe, 240.
4 In mid-April, Hitler flew to the naval port: Evans, Power, 29; Shirer, Rise, 214–15; Wheeler-Bennett, Nemesis, 311–13.
5 “Look at those people over there”: Gallo, 35.
6 “Reactionaries, bourgeois conformists”: Ibid., 37.
7 Two days later, however, a government announcement: Ibid., 88–89; Kershaw, Hubris, 509.
8 “the Man with the Iron Heart”: Deschner, 61, 62, 65, 66; Evans, Power, 53–54; Fest, 98–101.
9 “I could very well venture combat”: Gisevius, 137.
10 Toward the end of April the government: Kershaw, Hubris, 743; Wheeler-Bennett, 312. Wheeler-Bennett cites a government “communique” issued April 27, 1934, but Kershaw notes that he provides no source to substantiate its existence.
Chapter 37: Watchers
1 “Tell Boris Winogradov”: Haynes et al, 432; Weinstein and Vassiliev, 51. Both books present the NKVD message, though the translations vary slightly. I use the Haynes version, which is also the version that can be found online at Vassiliev, Notebooks, White Notebook #2, p. 13, March 28, 1934.
Chapter 38: Humbugged
1 A troubling incident: Dodd to Hull, April 17, 1934, Box 44, W. E. Dodd Papers.
2 “It is my opinion,” Dodd wrote: Ibid.
3 Dodd only learned of its existence: Dodd to R. Walton Moore, June 8, 1934, Box 44, W. E. Dodd Papers.
4 Entitled “Their Excellencies”: “Their Excellencies,” 115–16.
5 “reveals a strange and even unpatriotic attitude”: Dodd to William Phillips, June 4, 1934, Box 45, W. E. Dodd Papers.
6 “With regard to that article in Fortune”: William Phillips to Dodd, July 6, 1934, Box 45, W. E. Dodd Papers.
7 “Once there,” he wrote to Martha: Dodd to Martha, April 24, 1934, Box 62, W. E. Dodd Papers. He opens the letter, “Dear ‘Little’ Martha.”
8 “how they and their friends had calmed their fellows”: Dodd, Diary, 95.
9 “THEREFORE HOPE YOU CAN BRING NEW CAR”: Mrs. Dodd to Dodd, via John Campbell White, April 19, 1934, Box 44, W. E. Dodd Papers.
10 “I fear Mueller was driving carelessly”: Dodd to Martha, April 25, 1934, Box 62, W. E. Dodd Papers.
11 “ridiculously simple for an Ambassador”: Dodd, Diary, 108.
12 “This was a beautiful day”: Ibid., 98.
13 “the syphilis of all European peoples”: Dodd to Roosevelt, Aug. 15, 1934, Box 45, W. E. Dodd Papers.
14 “all the animosities of the preceding winter”: Ibid.
Dodd expresses a similar dismay at being embarrassed in a letter to Edward M. House, May 23, 1934, Box 44, W. E. Dodd Papers. He writes: “You recall what we did to ease off the excitement in Chicago, and you remember perhaps my advice to leading Jews that it would be well to let up a little in the boycott if the Germans gave evidence of a conciliatory attitude.” He closes, “I am frank to say that it has embarrassed me a good deal.”
15 “I was delighted to be home”: Dodd, Diary, 100.
PART VI: BERLIN AT DUSK
Chapter 39: Dangerous Dining
1 The post of ambassador to Austria: Phillips, Diary, March 16, 1934; Stiller, 54–55.
2 While Dodd was in America: Louis Lochner to Betty Lochner, May 29, 1934, Round Robin Letters, Box 6, Lochner Papers; “List of Persons Invited,” Box 59, W. E. Dodd Papers.
3 “I wonder why we were asked today”: Fromm, 162–64.
4 The host was a wealthy banker: I pieced together the story of the Regendanz dinner from the following accounts: Evans, Power, 26; François-Poncet, 139–40; Phipps, 66–67; Wilhelm Regendanz to Attorney General Brendel of Gestapo, July 2, 1934, Box 45, W. E. Dodd Papers.
Herman Ullstein, of the great German publishing dynasty, tells a darkly amusing story about another meal, this at a fancy restaurant in Potsdam. A man was dining in a group that included an attractive, dark-haired woman. A Nazi from a neighboring table, having concluded the woman was Jewish, asked the group to leave the restaurant. The seated man smiled and asked, “Do you mind if we finish our dinner first?”
Fifteen minutes later, the group was still eating and having a grand time, which caused the Nazi to return and demand that they leave at once.
The seated man calmly gave the Nazi his card, which identified him as “François-Poncet, Ambassadeur de France.” Ullstein, 287–88.
5 On Thursday, May 24, Dodd walked: Dodd, Diary, 101–2.
Chapter 40: A Writer’s Retreat
1 One of the most important moments in her education: My account of Martha’s day at Carwitz is based on the following sources: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 83–85; Martha Dodd, unpublished memoir, 2–3, Box 13, Martha Dodd Papers; Hans Fallada to Martha Dodd, June 8, 1934, and June 18, 1934, Box 5, Martha Dodd Papers; Williams, xvii, 126, 142, 150, 152–55, 176–78, 185–88, 194, 209; Schueler, 14, 66; Brysac, 148–50; Metcalfe, 193–95. Also see Turner, “Fallada,” throughout.
After this episode, Martha and Fallada had a brief exchange of letters. She sent him a short story of hers. He sent her a photograph, one of many he had taken that day at Carwitz—“unfortunately the only picture I took which turned out nicely.” Of her story, he wrote, “I wish that you will soon find the necessary quiet time and inner peace to work intensively—it’s worthwhile, I can tell from this little example.” Martha in turn sent along a collection of Boris’s photographs, and told Fallada she hoped one day to visit him again, which seemed to come as a relief to Fallada—“so,” he wrote back, “you did enjoy yourselves.”
She never returned to Carwitz. As the years advanced, she heard little of Fallada or his work, and believed “he must have surrendered completely both his craft and his dignity.” Fallada to Martha, June 8 and June 18, 1934, Box 5, Martha Dodd Papers; Martha Dodd, unpublished memoir, 2, Box 13, Martha Dodd Papers.
2 his pseudonym, Hans Fallada: Ditzen built his pseudonym from the names of two characters from Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Hans, from “Lucky Hans,” and Fallada from “The Goose Girl,” in which a horse named Falada (spelled with one l in the fable) proves able to detect truth even after being beheaded. Williams, xi.
3 “inner emigration”: Ritchie, 112.
4 “It may be superstitious belief”: Ibid., 115.
5 “By the spring of 1934,” she wrote: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 131–33.
6 “The prospect of a cessation”: Dodd to Hull, June 18, 1934 (No. 935), State/Foreign.
7 In May, he reported, the Nazi Party: Ibid.
8 Germany’s Aryan population: Dodd to Hull, June 18, 1934 (No. 932), State/Foreign.
9 “Germany looks dry for the first time”: Dodd, Diary, 105.
10 “the great heat”: Moffat, Diary, May 20, 1934.
Chapter 41: Trouble at the Neighbor’s
1 “tense and electric”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 134.
2 The change was obvious: Gallo, 122.
Chapter 42: Hermann’s Toys
1 Sunday, June 10, 1934: My account of this creepily charming episode is derived from the following sources: Cerruti, 178–80; Dodd, Diary, 108–9; Phipps, 56–58. I also examined Göring’s own portfolio of photographs of Carinhall, Lot 3810, in the photographic archives of the Library of Congress.
2 “rather attached to her”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 220.
Chapter 43: A Pygmy Speaks
1 The names of two former chancellors: Wheeler-Bennett, Nemesis, 315–17.
2 “Everywhere I go men talk of resistance”: Dodd to Hull, June 16, 1934, Box 44, W. E. Dodd Papers.
3 “The speech took months of preparation”: Evans, Power, 29–30; Jones, 167–73; Gallo, 137–40; Kershaw, Hubris, 509–10, 744 n. 57; Shirer, Rise, 218–19.
4
“I am told,” he began: For text, see Noakes and Pridham, 209–10; and Papen, 307. Also see Jones, 172; Gallo, 139–40; Kershaw, Hubris, 509. In his memoir, published in 1953, Papen states, “I prepared my speech with great care….” This claim has been widely discounted. Papen, 307.
5 “The thunder of applause”: Gallo, 141.
6 “It is difficult to describe the joy”: Wheeler-Bennett, Titan, 459.
7 “All these little dwarfs”: Gallo, 143–44; Shirer, Rise, 219. Also see Kershaw, Hubris, 510.
8 “If they should at any time”: Kershaw, Hubris, 510.
9 “were snatched from the hands of the guests”: Dodd to Hull, June 26, 1934, State/Foreign. For other details of the government’s reaction, see Evans, Power, 29–30; Jones, 172–74; Kershaw, Hubris, 510–11; Shirer, Rise, 218; Wheeler-Bennett, Titan, 460, and Nemesis, 319.
10 “There was something in the sultry air”: Gisevius, 128.
11 Someone threw a hand-grenade fuse: Ibid., 129.
12 “There was so much whispering”: Ibid., 129.
13 “Everywhere uncertainty, ferment”: Klemperer, Witness, 71. Klemperer looked to the weather to fuel his hopes that Hitler would be deposed. He wrote in his diary, “ ‘Beautiful weather’ = heat + lack of rain, abnormal lack of rain, such as has been causing havoc for three months now. A weapon against Hitler!” Witness, 72.
14 “There is now great excitement”: Dodd, Diary, 114; Dodd, Memorandum, June 18, 1934, Box 59, W. E. Dodd Papers.
15 “I spoke at Marburg”: Gallo, 152.
16 He promised to remove the propaganda: Evans, Power, 30; Kershaw, Hubris, 510.