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In the Garden of Beasts
Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
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Erik Larson has been widely acclaimed as a master of narrative non-fiction, and in his new book, the bestselling 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 readable 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.
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Creators
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Awards
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Release date
May 10, 2011 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780307914606
- File size: 370909 KB
- Duration: 12:52:43
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Professor William E. Dodd, FDR's fifth choice for the post of American ambassador to Germany in 1933, was na•ve and unsuited to the lavish diplomatic highlife. However, his flamboyant daughter, Martha, fit right in, growing infatuated with Berlin and Nazism. Stephen Hoye narrates Erik Larson's absorbing look at pre-WWII Germany, when Germany was crawling back from political and economic upheaval. Using journals, letters, and secondary and archival source material, Larson recounts the increasingly chaotic environment of diminishing civil rights, increasing anti-Semitism, violence, and brutality. Hoye's gripping performance chills to the soul. Dodd's warnings to Washington of Hitler's dark motives went unheeded partly because Washington feared that, if censured, Germany wouldn't pay its postwar debts. Hoye's edgy reading makes familiar events seem no less nightmarish. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine -
Starred review from March 21, 2011
In this mesmerizing portrait of the Nazi capital, Larson plumbs a far more diabolical urban cauldron than in his bestselling The Devil in the White City. He surveys Berlin, circa 1933â1934, from the perspective of two American naïfs: Roosevelt's ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, an academic historian and Jeffersonian liberal who hoped Nazism would de-fang itself (he urged Hitler to adopt America's milder conventions of anti-Jewish discrimination), and Dodd's daughter Martha, a sexual free spirit who loved Nazism's vigor and ebullience. At first dazzled by the glamorous world of the Nazi ruling elite, they soon started noticing signs of its true nature: the beatings meted out to Americans who failed to salute passing storm troopers; the oppressive surveillance; the incessant propaganda; the intimidation and persecution of friends; the fanaticism lurking beneath the surface charm of its officialdom. Although the narrative sometimes bogs down in Dodd's wranglings with the State Department and Martha's soap opera, Larson offers a vivid, atmospheric panorama of the Third Reich and its leaders, including murderous Nazi factional infighting, through the accretion of small crimes and petty thuggery. Photos. -
July 25, 2011
Larson (Devil in the White City) delivers another spellbinding and lively history in this exploration of Adolf Hitler's rise to power as seen by U.S. Ambassador to Germany William E. Dodd and his daughter, Martha. Larson contrasts Dodd's family life with the larger political and cultural shifts occurring in the years leading up to WWII. And he provides new insights into U.S. foreign policy via a close examination of Dodd's letters and writings. Stephen Hoye provides compelling narration and reads with a commanding voice that is deep but never intrusive. His narration is deliberate and forces listeners pay close attention to the author's prose. He also captures Martha's emotion and excitement as she falls inâand eventually out ofâline with the Nazi Party and engages in several affairs. The narrator's tone and delivery match Larson's prose, never condemning Martha's actions, but simply presenting her view of the world. At times, Hoye's narration slows, but his emphasis, inflection, flawless pronunciation, and energy will keep listeners engaged until the very end. A Crown hardcover.
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