In the Garden of Beasts Love Terror and an American Family in Hitler Berlin (Audible Audio Edition) Erik Larson Stephen Hoye Random House Audio Books
Download As PDF : In the Garden of Beasts Love Terror and an American Family in Hitler Berlin (Audible Audio Edition) Erik Larson Stephen Hoye Random House Audio Books
Erik Larson has been widely acclaimed as a master of narrative non-fiction, and in his new book, the best-selling author of Devil in the White City turns his hand to a remarkable story set during Hitler's rise to power.
The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history.
A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first, Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the "New Germany", she has one affair after another, including with the suprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate.
As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance - and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler's true character and ruthless ambition.
Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Göring and the expectedly charming - yet wholly sinister - Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively listenable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror.
In the Garden of Beasts Love Terror and an American Family in Hitler Berlin (Audible Audio Edition) Erik Larson Stephen Hoye Random House Audio Books
Larson focuses on the first two years of the Nazi era in Germany, 1933-1934, when Chicago history professor William Dodd went to Berlin to serve as US ambassador. He was accompanied by his family, including his daughter Martha, who was 24 years old when they arrived in Germany.Martha Dodd dated a series of dangerous boyfriends in Berlin, including a Soviet spy and the chief of the Gestapo secret police. In what may be the most ill-advised matchmaking attempt in world history, a mutual friend even tried to set her up with Adolf Hitler himself, although it never progressed beyond one brief meeting between the German leader and the American ambassador's daughter.
Foreign Service Officers may find the description of the 1930s-era Foreign Service to be of interest. Half-jokingly described as the "Pretty Good Club," the Foreign Service was then comprised mostly of wealthy men who were able to spend well beyond their government salaries while overseas. Anti-Semitic attitudes were both common and socially acceptable in the State Department of that era, which helps explain why America failed so miserably to accept Jewish refugees from Germany during the 1930s.
Wisconsin residents and University of Wisconsin alumni may be interested in a supporting character in the book, Milwaukee native and UW-Madison alumna Mildred Fish Harnack. She had moved to Germany and was a friend of the Dodd family in Berlin. Although she was an American citizen, she stayed in Germany after the war began, organized a anti-Nazi resistance group, and was executed by the guillotine on Hitler's orders in 1943. The University of Wisconsin Law School has an annual human rights lecture series named in her honor.
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In the Garden of Beasts Love Terror and an American Family in Hitler Berlin (Audible Audio Edition) Erik Larson Stephen Hoye Random House Audio Books Reviews
Another wonderful historic work from Erik Larson. Pre-war Germany, specifically Berlin, is the setting. The USA assigns an unlikely ambassador in the form of one William Dodd to the Berlin post. Dodd arrives with his family and starts to take stock of the task at hand. A self described "Jeffersonian Democrat", Dodd attempts to live within his means and dispenses with all the pomp and circumstance that usually accompanies such positions.
Dodd and his family kept diaries and wrote letters back and forth describing the changing climate in Germany and detail Hitler's rise to power. Fascinating. Violence against Jews is increasing unabated and neighboring countries, along with the USA, seem to be turning a blind eye. Dodd's daughter, Martha, falls right into the social scene and dates a string of SS men, Nazi's and a Russian official. The story evolves, along with Dodd's conclusions, into a wonderful historical description of Hitler's rise to ultimate power over Germany.
Highly summarized, the above description does NOT do justice to the engaging writing ability of Erik Larson. He can tell a story with a gift rare amongst none fiction novelists. Excellent work.
This book is most definitely on a par with Thunderstruck and I'm chomping at the bit waiting for Dead Wake to arrive.
Larson does an excellent job transporting the reader back to the early days of the Third Reich, and the increasingly hostile and menacing climate which was developing for anyone not a member of the favored Aryan class, and of course, particularly the Jewish people who were subjected to ever more indignities. The book focuses on the idealistic new American ambassador and his family, who initially are determined to think the best of Hitler and Germany in general, certain that the Hitler and his various lieutenants are merely full of patriotic zeal and the desire to restore Germany as a healthy thriving country following the deprivations of WWI. Much time is spent on seeing the evolving situation through the eyes of the Ambassador's daughter as her understanding develops as a consequence of her various relationships and liaisons. This is for me, the book's primary flaw. Too much of the story is developed around the perspective of a relatively uneducated and unsophisticated dilettante who is mostly interested in her next date, and stubbornly persists in seeing the Nazis as well intentioned young men. This makes the book a more fun read in many ways, but it glosses over the underlying issues and events that lead to the rise of Hitler and the horror of Nazi Germany. It does, however, make it easier to understand how so many bought into the idea, that this was just a man tapping into nationalist, patriotic fervor, and not someone who would be allowed to develop into one of the most monstrous public figures in the history of mankind. I would recommend the book to anyone interested in Nazi Germany and the ominous and portentous early days of Hitler's rise. There are modern parallels to be drawn as well.
An interesting angle on the history of Hitler's early years in power in Berlin. While her father is serving as Roosevelt's ambassador to Germany, Martha Dodd cavorted with Nazis, journalists, and foreign diplomats, including one from the USSR with whom she developed an intense on-again-off-again relationship. Both she and Ambassador Dodd were somewhat slow to recognize the full extent of the horrors being committed by the emerging Nazi regime. Dodd, an academic by nature who was far from Roosevelt's first choice for the job, finally began sounding the alarm and recommending preemptive action to avoid another world war but was seen as a Casandra by the old-boys club in the Department of State. Ultimately, of course, his warnings were proven to be correct but by then the Nazi war machine was too powerful to stop short of all-out war. Larson, has a knack for bringing history alive. Readable and Entertaining.
Larson focuses on the first two years of the Nazi era in Germany, 1933-1934, when Chicago history professor William Dodd went to Berlin to serve as US ambassador. He was accompanied by his family, including his daughter Martha, who was 24 years old when they arrived in Germany.
Martha Dodd dated a series of dangerous boyfriends in Berlin, including a Soviet spy and the chief of the Gestapo secret police. In what may be the most ill-advised matchmaking attempt in world history, a mutual friend even tried to set her up with Adolf Hitler himself, although it never progressed beyond one brief meeting between the German leader and the American ambassador's daughter.
Foreign Service Officers may find the description of the 1930s-era Foreign Service to be of interest. Half-jokingly described as the "Pretty Good Club," the Foreign Service was then comprised mostly of wealthy men who were able to spend well beyond their government salaries while overseas. Anti-Semitic attitudes were both common and socially acceptable in the State Department of that era, which helps explain why America failed so miserably to accept Jewish refugees from Germany during the 1930s.
Wisconsin residents and University of Wisconsin alumni may be interested in a supporting character in the book, Milwaukee native and UW-Madison alumna Mildred Fish Harnack. She had moved to Germany and was a friend of the Dodd family in Berlin. Although she was an American citizen, she stayed in Germany after the war began, organized a anti-Nazi resistance group, and was executed by the guillotine on Hitler's orders in 1943. The University of Wisconsin Law School has an annual human rights lecture series named in her honor.
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