In the Garden of Beasts

by Erik Larson

  17 “It was with cold calculation”: Gisevius, 131.

  18 The next day, June 21, 1934: Evans, Power, 30; Kershaw, Hubris, 510–11; Wheeler-Bennett, Nemesis, 320.

  19 “who after the Marburg speech”: Dodd, Diary, 114.

  20 “The week closes quietly”: Ibid., 115.

  Chapter 44: The Message in the Bathroom

  1 “He was entirely calm and fatalistic”: Wheeler-Bennett, Titan, 462.

  2 “Woe to him who breaks faith”: Wheaton, 443.

  3 On the medicine chest: Jones, 173.

  4 “beautiful Rhineland summer day”: Diels, 419.

  Chapter 45: Mrs. Cerruti’s Distress

  1 “During the last five days”: Dodd, Diary, 115–16.

  2 “the situation was much as it was in Paris”: Ibid., 116.

  3 “by the example of his magnetism”: Martha Dodd, “Bright Journey into Darkness,” 18, 21, Box 14, Martha Dodd Papers.

  4 Under Stalin, peasants had been forced: Riasanovsky, 551, 556. A personal note here: While I was an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, I took two wonderful courses from Riasanovsky’s brother, Alexander, who on one noteworthy evening taught me and my roommates how to drink vodka Russian-style. It was his delightful lecture style, however, that had the greater influence, and drove me to spend most of my time at Penn studying Russian history, literature, and language.

  5 Tour No. 9, the Volga-Caucasus-Crimea tour: “Detailed Schedule of Tour No. 9 for Miss Martha Dodd,” Box 62, W. E. Dodd Papers.

  6 “Martha!” he wrote, indulging his passion: Boris to Martha, June 7, 1934, Box 10, Martha Dodd Papers.

  7 “I never plotted the overthrow”: Martha to Agnes Knickerbocker, July 16, 1969, Box 13, Martha Dodd Papers.

  8 “It was the hottest day”: Cerruti, 153.

  9 “seemed self-confident”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 140.

  10 “You and Dr. Goebbels”: Dodd, Diary, 116.

  11 “She sat by my father”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 141.

  12 “Mr. Ambassador, something terrible”: Ibid., 141.

  13 She found this astonishing: Cerruti, 153, 157.

  14 “Temperature 101 and ½ in the shade today”: Moffat, Diary, June 29, 1934.

  15 The three men undressed and climbed in: Ibid.

  16 “Presumably the Ambassador has been complaining”: Phillips, Diary, June 15, 1934.

  17 “well and in extremely high spirits”: Moffat, Diary, July 17, 1934.

  Chapter 46: Friday Night

  1 That Friday evening, July 29, 1934: For this chapter I relied on the following sources: Birchall, 203; Evans, Power, 31–32; Gallo, 33, 38, 106; Kershaw, Hubris, 511–15. For a lengthy excerpt of Kempka’s account, see Noakes and Pridham, 212–14.

  PART VII: WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGED

  Chapter 47: “Shoot, Shoot!”

  1 “strolled serenely through the streets”: Adlon, 207.

  Hedda Adlon, wife of the Adlon’s proprietor, liked driving about town in her white Mercedes, and was said to keep twenty-eight Pekinese dogs. De Jonge, 132.

  2 “It was a beautiful serene blue day”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 141.

  3 “Röhm,” Hitler barked: Various and varying accounts of this episode appear in the literature. I relied on Kershaw, Hubris, 514; Noakes and Pridham, 213–14; and Strasser, 250.

  4 “It is never safe to despise a telephone call”: Birchall, 193.

  5 “dead tired—[could] weep”: Schultz, Daily Logs, July 5, 1934, Box 32, Schultz Papers.

  6 One of the most alarming rumors: Birchall, 198.

  7 At the Hotel Hanselbauer, Röhm got dressed: Noakes and Pridham, 213.

  8 “You have been condemned to death”: Kershaw, Hubris, 514.

  9 “As I followed Daluege”: Gisevius, 150.

  10 He looked troubled: Dodd, Diary, 117.

  Chapter 48: Guns in the Park

  1 “our heads giddy”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 142.

  2 “to his great sorrow”: Office of Der Stabschef der S.-A. to Dodd, June 29, 1934, Box 45, W. E. Dodd Papers.

  3 “In view of the uncertainty of the situation”: Dodd, Diary, 117.

  4 A wooden leg: German Office of Foreign Affairs to Dodd, May 28, 1935, Box 47, W. E. Dodd Papers.

  Chapter 49: The Dead

  1 “unbearable tension”: Quoted in Gallo, 257.

  2 “For weeks we have been watching”: Birchall, 205–7; Gallo, 257.

  3 No one knew exactly how many people lost their lives: I constructed this paragraph and the one following from an array of sources: Hugh Corby Fox, Memorandum, July 2, 1934, Box 45, W. E. Dodd Papers; H. C. Flack, Confidential Memorandum, July 7, 1934, Box 45, W. E. Dodd Papers; Wheeler-Bennett, Nemesis, 323; Gallo, 256, 258; Rürup, 53, 223; Kershaw, Hubris, 515; Evans, Power, 34–36; Strasser, 252, 263; Gisevius, 153; Birchall, 20; Metcalfe, 269.

  4 One target, Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus: Gallo, 255; Martha offers a slightly different account in her memoir: Embassy Eyes, 155.

  5 “To the king of Siam”: Adlon, 207–9.

  6 poor Willi Schmid: Shirer, Rise, 224n. See also Birchall, 207; Evans, Power, 36; Kershaw, Hubris, 515.

  7 Providently, he was in America: Casey, 340; Conradi, 143, 144, 148, 151, 157, 159, 163, 167–68; New York Times, July 1, 1934.

  8 “against the background of a blood-red sky”: Gisevius, 160.

  9 In a radio address propaganda chief Goebbels: Birchall, 205.

  Chapter 50: Among the Living

  1 “It was a strange day”: Dodd, Diary, 117.

  That Sunday, the Jewish newspaper Bayerische Israelitische Gemeindezeitung, still in operation—it would continue until 1937—published cautionary advice for its readers, urging them, according to one historian’s account, “to show more reserve, tact and dignity and to behave impeccably in public places so as not to offend.”

  That Sunday afternoon, Hitler held a tea party at his chancellery for members of his cabinet, various ministers, and their families. Children were invited. Hitler at one point walked to a window overlooking the street. A crowd gathered below roared its approval.

  The ever-present Hans Gisevius was there as well. Hitler spotted him and raised his hand in greeting. Gisevius wrote, “It occurred to me that if he could read my innermost thoughts, he would have me shot.” Dippel, 150; Gallo, 269; Kershaw, Hubris, 516; Gisevius quoted in Gallo, 270.

  2 They drove past the entrance very slowly: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 142–43.

  3 The story, pieced together later: Evans, Power, 33; Kershaw, Hubris, 176, 516.

  4 Accounts vary: Evans, Power, 33; Kershaw, Hubris, 516; Gallo, 270; Shirer, Rise, 221; Noakes and Pridham, 215.

  After Röhm’s murder, Hitler claimed that the SA chief’s homosexual practices had come as a complete surprise to him. A new joke promptly made the rounds in Berlin: “What will he do when he finally finds out about Goebbels’s club foot?”

  Another joke began circulating at about the same time: “It is only now that we can realize the full significance of Röhm’s recent address to Nazi youth, ‘Out of every Hitler Youth, a Storm Trooper will Emerge.’” Grunberger, 332, 335.

  5 As a reward: Wheaton, 452.

  6 “The Führer with soldierly decision”: Noakes and Pridham, 216; see slightly different version in Wheeler-Bennett, Nemesis, 325.

  7 “Lebst du noch?”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 151.

  Chapter 51: Sympathy’s End

  1 “The diplomats seemed jittery”: Fromm, 171–72. Fromm claimed that after the purge she briefly took to carrying a revolver, but then threw it into a canal. Dippel, 150.

  2 Dodd and his wife stood at the entrance: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 157.

  3 “Der junge Herr von Papen”: Ibid., 158.

  4 “a certain fine beauty”: Ibid., 157.

  5 “The sight of these clothes”: Cerruti, 157.

  6 “to bring her my heartiest greetings”: Wilhelm Regendanz to Mrs. Dodd, July 3, 1934, Box 45, W. E. Dodd Papers.

  7 “When she spoke of her son”: Dodd,
Embassy Eyes, 163–65.

  8 “Arrived safe and sound”: Ibid., 165.

  9 “We have replied to them”: Moffat, Diary, July 5, 1934.

  10 “quite exciting”: Moffat, Diary, July 17, 1934.

  11 “this would be extremely difficult”: Dodd to Hull, July 6, 1934, State/Foreign.

  12 “By his own showing”: Moffat, Diary, July 7–8, 1934.

  13 Hull angrily ordered Moffat: Ibid.

  14 “with the utmost vigor”: Hull to Dodd, July 7, 1934, State/Foreign.

  15 “It was a fairly stiff telegram”: Moffat, Diary, July 7–8, 1934.

  16 “Ambassador Dud”: Moffat, Diary, July 5, 1934.

  17 “The Secretary kept repeating”: Moffat, Diary, July 11, 1934.

  18 “the entire State Department”: Ibid.

  19 “Our people will have to lose their bonds”: Dodd to Hull, Aug. 2, 1934, vol. 37, Reel 11, Hull Papers.

  20 “an interesting trip”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 170.

  21 A photographer captured her looking jaunty: Ibid., opposite 198.

  22 “I had had enough of blood and terror”: Ibid., 169.

  23 “I could not have imagined the outbreak against the Jews”: Dodd to Daniel C. Roper, Aug. 14, 1934, Box 45, W. E. Dodd Papers.

  24 “From the reports placed before me”: Wheeler-Bennett, Nemesis, 325–26.

  25 “energetic and successful proceeding”: Ibid., 326n1.

  26 “it was a relief that he did not appear.”: Dodd, Diary, 121.

  27 “My task here is to work for peace”: Ibid., 123.

  28 He vowed never to host: Ibid., 126.

  Chapter 52: Only the Horses

  1 “I shall not attend the address”: Dodd, Diary, 127.

  Sir Eric Phipps, in his own diary, wrote, “So long as the Reichstag merely serves as a convenient platform for the glorification of crime and for attacks on foreign heads of mission in Berlin, I propose to leave vacant the seat which in normal circumstances The King’s representative might be glad occasionally to occupy.” Phipps, 68.

  2 “Deputies,” Hitler said: A translation of Hitler’s speech appears in Gallo, 298–307. Most accounts agree that Hitler claimed only seventy-seven people had been killed, though at least one (Evans, Power, 39) states that Hitler put the number at seventy-four. See also Birchall, 209.

  3 Had Dodd been present: Birchall, 209.

  4 “They stood face to face on the dais”: Ibid.

  5 “NOTHING MORE REPULSIVE”: Dodd to Hull, July 14, 1934, Box 44, W. E. Dodd Papers.

  In Washington, Jay Pierrepont Moffat was able to listen to Hitler’s speech over the radio. “It struck me as full of banalities and by far the weakest speech he has thus far made,” Moffat wrote in his diary entry for July 13, 1934. “The transmission was extraordinarily clear. He has a curious rasping voice which at moments of excitement rose almost to a shriek. He gave no proof of the conspiracy and his remarks with regard to the outside world were distinctly weak.” Moffat, Diary, July 13, 1934.

  6 “as if they were chloroformed”: Quoted in Conradi, 168.

  7 “A few days ago in Germany”: Quoted in Hull to Roosevelt, July 13, 1934, State/Foreign.

  8 Dodd at first seemed inclined to believe: For the evolution of Dodd’s thinking, see Dodd to Hull, July 2, 1934; Dodd to Hull, July 5, 1934; Dodd to Hull, July 6, 1934; and Dodd to Hull, July 7, 1934, all in State/Foreign.

  9 Britain’s Sir Eric Phipps initially accepted the official story: Phipps, 14, 61.

  10 “It has not increased his charm”: Ibid., 76.

  11 “a type of gangland bloodbath”: Kershaw, Hubris, 522.

  12 “I… had no idea that this hour of lightning”: Diels, 382.

  13 An intelligence report from the exiled Social Democrats: Kershaw, Myth, 87.

  14 “an even more terroristic regime”: Dodd to Hull, Aug. 2, 1934, Box 44, W. E. Dodd Papers.

  15 “The people hardly noticed this complete coup d’etat”: Klemperer, Witness, 80.

  16 “Today Hitler is the Whole of Germany”: Kershaw, Myth, 68.

  17 “At a time when nearly every German”: Dodd, Diary, 140–41.

  Chapter 53: Juliet #2

  1 “I am very sad”: Boris to Martha, July 11, 1934, Box 10, Martha Dodd Papers. Also see, Boris to Martha, “late July-1934,” and Boris to Martha, “early Aug. 1934,” both also in Box 10.

  2 “You are the one”: Boris to Martha, Aug. 5, 1934, Box 10, Martha Dodd Papers.

  3 Martha was approached by emissaries: Weinstein and Vassiliev, 52.

  4 “The entire Dodd family”: Ibid., 52; Vassiliev, Notebooks, White Notebook #2, 25.

  5 she formally petitioned Stalin: Weinstein and Vassiliev, 55; Vassiliev, Notebooks, White Notebook #2, 37, March 14, 1937.

  6 “in the interests of business”: Weinstein and Vassiliev, 58. A slightly different translation appears at Vassiliev, Notebooks, White Notebook #2, 33.

  7 “I don’t quite understand”: Weinstein and Vassiliev, 58; Vassiliev, Notebooks, White Notebook #2, 45, March 21, 1937.

  8 “Juliet #2”: Weinstein and Vassiliev, 58–59; Vassiliev, Notebooks, White Notebook #2, 45, March 21, 1937.

  9 The meeting “went off well”: Weinstein and Vassiliev, 59; Vassiliev, Notebooks, White Notebook #2, 51, Nov. 12, 1937. Here the translation reads: “The meeting with ‘Liza’ was successful. She was in a good mood….”

  Chapter 54: A Dream of Love

  1 “It is so humiliating to me”: Dodd, Diary, 276.

  2 “With Germany united”: Dodd to Hull, Aug. 30, 1934, Box 44, W. E. Dodd Papers.

  3 “In my judgment, the German authorities”: Dodd to Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Aug. 27, 1934, Box 44, W. E. Dodd Papers.

  4 “If Woodrow Wilson’s bones”: Dallek, 279.

  5 “the delicate work of watching”: Dodd, Diary, 216.

  6 “What in the world is the use”: Phillips, Diary, n.d., 1219.

  7 “That you have found me”: Kershaw, Myth, 82.

  8 “With armies increasing in size”: Dodd to Hull, Sept. 19, 1936, Box 49, W. E. Dodd Papers.

  9 “You must not mention to anyone”: Dodd to Martha, Oct. 28, 1936, Box 62, W. E. Dodd Papers.

  10 “Dodd has many admirable and likeable qualities”: William C. Bullitt to Roosevelt, Dec. 7, 1936, in Bullitt, 194–95.

  11 “Personally, I cannot see”: Moffat, Diary, Aug. 27, 1934.

  12 “attacking me violently”: Dodd, Diary, 371.

  13 “My position is difficult”: Ibid., 372.

  14 “I thought of you, my dear”: Mrs. Dodd to Dodd, July 25, 1937, Box 62, W. E. Dodd Papers.

  15 “spread over the nerve connections”: Dodd, Diary, 334.

  16 “at sixty-five one must take stock”: Dr. Thomas R. Brown to Dodd, March 7, 1935, Box 46, W. E. Dodd Papers.

  17 “It was quite obvious that something had happened”: Messersmith, “Visits to Berlin,” unpublished memoir, 10, Messersmith Papers.

  18 “I think he was so thoroughly appalled”: Ibid., 10.

  19 “speak the truth about things”: Dodd, Diary, 426.

  20 “I have long believed Welles was opposed to me”: Ibid., 427.

  21 “I have not the slightest doubt”: R. Walton Moore to Dodd, Dec. 14, 1937, Box 52, W. E. Dodd Papers.

  22 “desired to make it plain”: Dallek, 313.

  23 Hyde Park—“a marvelous place”: Dodd, Diary, 428–29.

  24 “In Berlin once more.”: Dodd, Diary, 430.

  25 “Much as the President regrets any personal inconvenience”: Hull to Dodd, Nov. 23, 1937, Box 51, W. E. Dodd Papers.

  26 “Until now I have lived with the memory”: Boris to Martha, April 29, 1938, Box 10, W. E. Dodd Papers.

  27 They became engaged: Chicago Daily Tribune, Sept. 5, 1938; New York Times, Sept. 5, 1938; Weinstein and Vassiliev, 61; Vassiliev, Notebooks, White Notebook #2, 56, July 9, 1938,

  28 “You know, honey”: Weinstein and Vassiliev, 61; Vassiliev, Notebooks, White Notebook #2, 56, July 9, 1938. In Weinstein
and Vassiliev, the translation reads “honey”; in the notebooks, “darling.”

  29 She never learned that Boris’s last letter: Weinstein and Vassiliev, 61–62.

  Chapter 55: As Darkness Fell

  1 “must face the sad fact”: New York Times, Dec. 23, 1937.

  2 “Mankind is in grave danger”: New York Times, Jan. 14, 1938.

  3 “I personally felt quite strongly”: Moffat, Diary, Jan. 14, 1938.

  4 “Great Britain,” he said: New York Times, Feb. 22, 1938.

  5 “I do wish we were all nearer together”: Mrs. Dodd to Martha, Feb. 26, 1938, Box 63, Martha Dodd Papers.

  6 “So far I can’t get anything done”: Mrs. Dodd to Martha, April 26, 1938, Box 1, Martha Dodd Papers.

  7 “Wish I did have a home”: Mrs. Dodd to Martha, May 23, 1938, Box 1, Martha Dodd Papers.

  8 “It was the greatest shock”: Dodd, Diary, 446.

  9 “the strain and terror of life”: Dodd, Embassy Eyes, 370.

  10 “to kill them all”: Bailey, 192, 194.

  11 “could scarcely believe”: Breitman and Kraut, 230.

  12 “My hunch is that you have lots of chances”: Sigrid Schultz to Dodd, Nov. 30, 1938, Box 56, W. E. Dodd Papers.

  13 “It was not my fault”: For details on this episode, see New York Times, Dec. 9 and Dec. 10, 1938; March 3 and May 7, 1939; Bailey, 195–96; Dallek, 332.

  14 A front-page article: United Press, “Dodd Is Attacked…”, n.d., Box 2, Martha Dodd Papers.

  15 “ill and not entirely responsible”: Bailey, 199.

  16 “If they had co-operated”: Dallek, 332.

  17 By fall, Dodd was confined: Bailey, 199–200; New York Times, Feb. 10, 1940.

  18 He was buried: Martha later had Dodd’s body moved to Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C., Dec. 6, 1946, Section L., Lot 37, Site 4. One lovely spring afternoon, accompanied by one of my daughters, I visited the Stoneleigh Golf and Country Club, which is part of a development that includes large faux-colonial houses on outsized parcels of land an hour or so west of Washington, D.C. Though the golf course (18 holes, par 72) is necessarily closely manicured, I nonetheless got a sense of how compelling this terrain must have been for Dodd, especially during his first visit home from Berlin when the farm’s soft hills must have been deeply soothing. His old barn is still there and a few stretches of ancient stone fence, but now instead of pigs the barn shelters masses of suckling golf carts. Dodd took a dim view of golf and golfers, especially those members of his Berlin staff who were continually skipping work to play a few rounds at their Wannsee club. It is a good thing Martha moved his body, because his ghost surely would have proved a daunting hazard, blocking putts and hurling balls far off into the adjacent swales and roughs.