In the Garden of Beasts

“Ever a student of history, Dodd had come to believe in the inherent rationality of men and that reason and persuasion would prevail, particularly with regard to halting Nazi persecution of Jews.” 

The Nazis are a new force on the planet, one whose leaders behave badly but speak politely and eloquently to outsiders. The outsiders, in turn, are quick to conclude that Hitler’s men are civilized. Dodd, like many other American officials, wants to believe that the Nazis aren’t so bad; this is a mistake, and Hitler’s people take ruthless advantage of outsiders’ innocence and naiveté. 

“Change came to Germany so quickly and across such a wide front that German citizens who left the country for business or travel returned to find everything around them altered, as if they were characters in a horror movie who come back to find that people who once were their friends, clients, patients, and customers have become different in ways hard to discern.” 

German citizens cannot see how quickly and thoroughly a dictator has subjugated. The German post-war experiment in democracy lasts just 15 years, nowhere near enough time to grow institutionally robust. Hitler quickly dismantles democracy, taking advantage of Germany's deeper tradition of accepting authority. 

“The German public had so avidly embraced the salute as to make the act of incessantly saluting almost comical, especially in the corridors of public buildings where everyone from the lowliest messenger to the loftiest official saluted and Heiled one another, turning a walk to the men’s room into an exhausting affair.” 

Using a combination of the German people’s love of ceremony, elation at their new feeling of national pride, and fear of reprisal if they resist, the Nazis soon have everyone saluting in the correct manner. This habit is meant to unify the people, as well as get them into the habit of unthinking loyalty.

“Dodd reiterated his commitment to objectivity and understanding in an August 12 letter to Roosevelt, in which he wrote that while he did not approve of Germany’s treatment of Jews or Hitler’s drive to restore the country’s military power, ‘fundamentally, I believe a people has a right to govern itself and that other peoples must exercise patience even when cruelties and injustices are done. Give men a chance to try their schemes.’” 

The idea of “live and let live” in international politics is deeply rooted in American thought, a companion attitude to the strongly held belief in individual liberty that forms part of the foundation of American society. This belief is especially apt with respect to foreign democracies, since it would be hypocritical to interfere in the affairs of a nation exercising its democratic prerogatives. These attitudes shift after World War II, as the US becomes a international policeman that gets involved frequently in other nations’ affairs, democratic or otherwise.  

“The youth are bright faced and hopeful, they sing to the noble ghost of Horst Wessel with shining eyes and unerring tongues. Wholesome and beautiful lads these Germans, good, sincere, healthy, mystic brutal, fine, hopeful, capable of death and love, deep, rich wondrous and strange beings—these youths of modern Hakenkreuz Germany.” 

Martha Dodd initially admires the Nazi movement and its romantic vision of the future of Germany. Much of the outside world has a similar reaction. Before long, however, Nazi abuses will cease to resemble the excesses of exuberance and begin to appear to be violent and murderous. In time, Martha will reach the same conclusion. 

“The value of the SA and the SS, seen from my viewpoint of inspector-general responsible for the suppression of subversive tendencies and activities, lies in the fact that they spread terror. That is a wholesome thing.” 

Gestapo head, Rudolf Diels, believes in the political value of intimidation to dissuade dissent against the government. This attitude, shared among the Nazi elite, is the direct opposite of the approach taken by Western-style democracies, where opposing beliefs are part of the political process. The German people, recently under a young and fragile democracy, find their liberties taken from them during the Nazi era, only to be replaced by suppression and terror. 

“The attacks against Americans, his protests, the unpredictability of Hitler and his deputies, and the need to tread with so much delicacy in the face of official behavior that anywhere else might draw time in prison—all of it wore Dodd down. He was plagued by headaches and stomach troubles. In a letter to a friend he described his ambassadorship as “this disagreeable and difficult business.” 

As US ambassador to Germany, Dodd finds himself hamstrung by protocol in the face of atrocities committed by the German government. He can raise the issue but has no power to prevent the behavior. Long a distinguished intellectual who solves issues with polite discussion, Dodd feels ill-suited to the atmosphere in Berlin, where political leaders behave like thugs; the stress takes its toll on his health. Dodd also must attend to the minutiae of diplomacy, matters that take up precious time and, in the case of Germany, produce little or no benefit, time that he had hoped he could spend on writing his book about the history of the American South. 

“As a historian, he had come to view the world as the product of historical forces and the decisions of rational people, and he expected the men around him to behave in a civil and coherent manner. But Hitler’s government was neither civil nor coherent, and the nation lurched from one inexplicable moment to another.” 

It’s rare to encounter a government in a major country that is entirely based on a fanatical belief system. Nazi Germany’s is one such government; foreign diplomats have little idea how to deal with it. Being reasonable and talking sense have no effect. The usual skills of diplomacy are useless against leaders determined, despite all drawbacks, to implement a deadly plan. 

“‘In times of great stress,’ he began, ‘men are too apt to abandon too much of their past social devices and venture too far upon uncharted courses. And the consequence has always been reaction, sometimes disaster.’” 

Dodd speaks publicly in Berlin against the dangerous and abusive policies of the Nazi government, citing the disastrous legacy of similar dictatorships in history. His audience contains several German officials; his speech has long odds against winning their hearts and minds, but it also represents some of the basic beliefs that underlie American political values. Most of his audience applauds heartily; sadly, they, too, will shortly discover that they are unable to affect the course of Germany under tyrannical rule. 

“According to Nazi philosophy only Germans who are physically fit belong in the Third Reich, and they are the ones who are expected to raise large families.” 

Dodd notes the German government’s plans to euthanize people they deem physically undesirable—the lame, the mentally challenged, and others with disabilities—and grow a large German population to help it control Europe. It’s part of Hitler’s plan to create a society of one pure-and-fit ethnic group, the Aryans he so admires, who will dominate the world. 

“The infliction of physical punishment is not every man’s job, and naturally we were only too glad to recruit men who were prepared to show no squeamishness at their task. Unfortunately, we knew nothing about the Freudian side of the business, and it was only after a number of instances of unnecessary flogging and meaningless cruelty that I tumbled to the fact that my organization had been attracting all the sadists in Germany and Austria without my knowledge for some time past. It had also been attracting unconscious sadists, i.e. men who did not know themselves that they had sadist leanings until they took part in a flogging. And finally it had been actually creating sadists. For it seems that corporal chastisement ultimately arouses sadistic leanings in apparently normal men and women. Freud might explain it.” 

Rudolf Diels expresses the kind of self-reflection rare in a Nazi. He evinces a willingness to question policy, an attitude that would be constructive within a democratic society but unworthy and dangerous among the Nazis. Diels is relieved of his post as head of the Gestapo and barely escapes with his life. His successor, hand-picked by Himmler, will exercise a ruthlessness unimagined even by Diels, bringing to the Gestapo a new level of sadism that will make the organization famous for its brutality and terror. 

“A popular metaphor used at the time to describe the atmosphere in Berlin was that of an approaching thunderstorm—that sense of charged and suspended air.” 

Something in the springtime atmosphere warns Berliners that trouble is coming. Their instincts prove correct: A few months later, Hitler launches a putsch against SA leaders and other opponents, a bloody affair that cements his control over Germany and seals its fate. 

“Fromm added, ‘There is nobody among the officials of the National Socialist party who would not cheerfully cut the throat of every other official in order to further his own advancement.’” 

A fanatical political system attracts ruthless people. The result is a continuing state of paranoia among the governing elite, who understand that if they personally are willing to stop at nothing, then so are the people around them in government. 

“The chief impression was that of the most pathetic naïveté of General Göring, who showed us his toys like a big, fat, spoilt child: his primeval woods, his bison and birds, his shooting-box and lake and bathing beach, his blond ‘private secretary,’ his wife’s mausoleum and swans and sarsen stones. […] And then I remembered there were other toys, less innocent though winged, and these might some day be launched on their murderous mission in the same childlike spirit and with the same childlike glee.” 

Massive, loud, and intelligent, Göring can bull his way through German politics, winning with sheer energy and intimidation. His narcissism unchecked, his boyish enthusiasms uninhibited, Göring never has to grow up but merely competently serve Hitler’s wishes. This he does, to chilling effect. 

“With rising ferocity, Hitler, Göring, and Goebbels warned of dire consequences for anyone who dared to oppose the government. In a cable to the State Department, Dodd likened the atmosphere of threat to that of the French Revolution—‘the situation was much as it was in Paris in 1792 when the Girondins and Jacobins were struggling for supremacy.’” 

The approach to the Night of the Long Knives begins with verbal threats, as Hitler’s inner circle signals to its opponents that they must stand down or face removal. The warnings also serve as cover for the killings to come, as Hitler can claim that he has tried to be reasonable with the plotters, whom he asserts threaten the German people.  

“As the weekend progressed, the Dodds learned that a new phrase was making the rounds in Berlin, to be deployed upon encountering a friend or acquaintance on the street, ideally with a sardonic lift of one eyebrow: ‘Lebst du noch?’ Which meant, ‘Are you still among the living?’” 

The worldly cynicism of Berliners, with its acknowledgement of the apparent randomness of the recent executions, makes one final appearance before the Nazi regime shuts down any dissent. Germans hereafter will have to hold their tongues or suffer the same fate as those recently killed. 

“What most occupied the attention of the State Department was the outstanding German debt to American creditors. It was a strange juxtaposition. In Germany, there was blood, viscera, and gunfire; at the State Department in Washington, there were white shirts, Hull’s red pencils, and mounting frustration with Dodd for failing to press America’s case.” 

Officers on the ground often chafe at the commands of distant bureaucrats who are ignorant of the situation in the field. Dodd struggles to explain to a hostile audience in Washington that the Germans no longer have any intention of paying back their American debts. The State Department, trying to cope with the strangeness of the Nazi regime, struggles to understand what Dodd clearly sees every day. These kinds of misunderstandings are common in diplomatic work; in this case, the crossed signals and delays will haunt the US later, when it must clean up the mess by fighting a war against Germany. 

“‘At a time when hundreds of men have been put to death without trial or any sort of evidence of guilt, and when the population literally trembles with fear, animals have rights guaranteed them which men and women cannot think of expecting.’ He added, ‘One might easily wish he were a horse!’” 

Dodd notes the irony that a civilized and morally conscientious people end up more mistreated than their own animals. He bemoans the decline of German humanity under Hitler. 

“Germany continued its march toward war and intensified its persecution of Jews, passing a collection of laws under which Jews ceased to be citizens no matter how long their families had lived in Germany or how bravely they had fought for Germany in the Great War. Now on his walks through the Tiergarten Dodd saw that some benches had been painted yellow to indicate they were for Jews. The rest, the most desirable, were reserved for Aryans.” 

The noose is tightening on the Jewish people; each successive restriction on their lives helps to inure Germans to the abuses to come, until everyone tolerates the wholesale removal of Jews from German society. Perhaps only an outsider can grasp the full meaning of a bench painted yellow and foresee the dark future ahead. 

“At the September 1936 party rally in Nuremberg, which Dodd did not attend, Hitler launched his audience into near hysteria. ‘That you have found me… among so many millions is the miracle of our time!’ he cried. ‘And that I have found you, that is Germany’s fortune!”’ 

In most any other place and time, a politician who makes such statements would be laughed off the podium. That Hitler can express self-adulation, and receive ovations for it, makes clear that he has deified himself in the eyes of his followers. His control has become total; he can do anything he wants with his Nazi adherents. 

“Mankind is in grave danger, but democratic governments seem not to know what to do. If they do nothing, Western civilization, religious, personal and economic freedom are in grave danger.” 

It’s one of the great ironies of the lead-up to the Second World War that the democratic powers find themselves helpless in the face of the mounting German threat. Liberal democracies offer respect to all, even those who don’t deserve it, on the optimistic premise that the well-treated will respond in kind. Malignant tyrannies thus have an initial edge over peace-loving democracies, taking advantage of democratic forbearance. 

“In the end, Dodd proved to be exactly what Roosevelt had wanted, a lone beacon of American freedom and hope in a land of gathering darkness.” 

Dodd speaks out against German tyranny and signals American disdain for Hitler’s regime, positions Roosevelt wants aired. The president would therefore keep Dodd in place, were it not for widespread anti-Dodd sentiment in a State Department that Roosevelt needs on his side. 

“Martha and Stern were very public about their mutual interest in communism and leftist causes, and in 1953, they drew the attention of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, chaired then by Representative Martin Dies, which issued subpoenas to have them testify. They fled to Mexico, but as pressure from federal authorities increased, they moved again, settling in Prague, where they lived a very noncommunistic lifestyle in a three-story, twelve-room villa attended by servants. They bought a new black Mercedes.” 

The foolish way Martha Dodd and her husband defy convention and stump openly for Communism reveals that she’s a woman of conviction. This merely wins them added scrutiny until the US government figures out that they have been spying for Russia. Nonetheless, it’s ironic that, in exile, Martha and Stern live in luxury while professing Communist beliefs. Even the Soviets don’t hold them in much respect.