In the Garden of Beasts

Dodd and Undersecretary Phillips continue their chilly correspondence. Privately, each tries to undermine the other. Dodd writes to Roosevelt, asking him to transfer Phillips away from Washington, “perhaps as an ambassador somewhere," hoping this “would limit a little the favoritisms that prevail there" (217). 

Boris takes Martha to dinner at a posh restaurant, then to the Soviet embassy to see his rooms, where he has constructed two shrines: one for communist revolutionary, Lenin, and one for Martha. Boris’s nine-year-old daughter visits briefly; the girl seems suspicious of Martha. Later, while lying in bed with Boris, Martha has a strange premonition that he “had somehow transgressed an unwritten prohibition. She sensed that some ‘malevolent eye’ had taken note” (222). 

Germans begin to censor themselves, even in private. They believe “their ability to lead normal lives ‘depended on their acceptance of the Nazi regime and their keeping their heads down” (224). Jews feel a constant fear of arrest. The Dodds realize that someone has bugged their home and the embassy: “It suppressed routine discourse" (225). Everyone is becoming paranoid.

Martha worries for the safety of friends, such as Boris and Mildred, who oppose the Nazis. At night, sounds and shadows frighten Martha: “‘I often felt such terror,’ she wrote, ‘that occasionally I would wake up my mother and ask her to come and sleep in my room’” (228). 

Captain Röhm, head of the SA, wants to combine the force with the regular army and position himself as the leader. At a meeting of top officers, Hitler consigns Röhm’s SA to political action and border guarding. Röhm considers this a humiliation: “For Röhm, Hitler’s remarks constituted a betrayal of their long association" (230). To close associates, Röhm wishes, "Hitler? If only we could get rid of that limp rag" (230). Hitler learns of Rohm’s remark. 

In New York City in March 1934, the American Jewish Congress and other groups are preparing a mock trial of Hitler. The German ambassador and his assistant both protest this event and ask the State Department to stop it. Secretary Hull replies that it is a private affair, and the government has no power to prevent it.

German Foreign Minister Neurath summons Dodd to protest the mock trial and similar events in America, declaring them to be “a combat tantamount to direct interference in the internal affairs of another country" (233). Dodd reiterates that the US government may not interfere with its citizens’ speech.

The mock trial convicts Hitler; the State Department releases a statement “to re-emphasize the private nature of the gathering and that no member of the Administration was present" (234).

Dodd meets again with Hitler. They discuss a recent spate of propaganda in America urging Germans there “to think themselves always as Germans and owing moral, if not political, allegiance to the fatherland" (235). Hitler blames Jewish agitators. Dodd suggests that, as in the US, Germany should adjust the number of Jews in high positions to moderate any perceived problems. Hitler angrily denies that this can work; instead, he threatens to “make a complete end to all of them in this country" (236).

When asked if he is preparing for war, Hitler denies it. He says he will respect international borders but insists that Germany shall have “equality of rights in the matter of armaments" (236-37). Dodd finally realizes that “Hitler’s real purpose was to buy time to allow Germany to rearm" (237).

Tensions flare between the State Department and the German foreign office over the recent mock trial, with the Germans still outraged and State reminding them that Americans enjoy certain cherished political freedoms. Meanwhile, a Senate resolution urging Roosevelt to protest German abuse of Jews fails on the grounds that it would put Roosevelt in an awkward spot with respect to America’s treatment of its black citizens. 

Diels again fears for his life, in part due to “the fact that he continued to resist choosing a side and as a result was distrusted in varying degrees by all camps" (243-44), and because he knows too much. His health deteriorates, and he begs Göring for a leave of absence, which Göring grants. Diels checks into a Swiss sanitorium.

On his return, he invites Martha to spend more time with him, as this may help assure his safety. To Martha, he seems “‘like a frightened rabbit,’ though she also sensed that a part of Diels—the old confident Lucifer—reveled in the game of extricating himself from his predicament" (244). 

Dodd arrives in America in March 1934. In Washington, Roosevelt tells him that protests in New York are getting out of hand and asks him “to get Chicago Jews to call off their Mock Trial set for mid-April" (246-47).

Dodd also meets with State Department officials and criticizes the lavish spending practices of the Foreign Service. Officials openly praise his speech, but Dodd knows their real feelings lie elsewhere. 

Diels fears Himmler plans to have him arrested and killed. Martha appeals to Messersmith to speak with Göring about protecting Diels. Messersmith no longer likes Martha: “He found her behavior—her various love affairs—repugnant" (249). He realizes, though, that Diels alive is better than Himmler in charge of the Gestapo.

Messersmith tells Göring of the plot by his political enemy, and by day's end, Diels is appointed regional commissioner of Cologne. Himmler, however, is now head of the Gestapo, “the last and most important component of his secret-police empire" (251).

President Hindenburg becomes gravely ill in April. Hitler strikes a deal with the army and navy, who will support his claim to the presidency in exchange for Hitler removing SA leader Röhm. Meanwhile, "Heinrich Himmler appointed his young protégé Reinhard Heydrich, newly thirty, to fill Diels’s job as chief of the Gestapo" (253). Heydrich is utterly ruthless: “With Diels gone, the last trace of civility left the Gestapo" (253). 

Soviet spies notice that Boris and Martha are growing closer, while Martha’s infatuation with the Nazis is fading. They decide to have Boris turn her to their side: “the sentiments of his acquaintance (Martha Dodd) have fully ripened for her to be recruited once and for all to work for us" (254). 

Dodd thinks conspirators in his Berlin embassy and at the State Department are plotting to have him removed. He cites an article in Forbes that makes fun of his overseas frugality, wondering how the reporter got his information. Phillips brushes off his concern: “Don’t let this particular item disturb you in the least" (257).

Dodd visits his farm for two weeks, gets some work done on his book, and visits Chicago, where he “gave speeches and resolved faculty squabbles" (257). He also talks to the Jewish promoters of the Chicago mock Hitler trial, who assure him they have calmed the participants and “prevented any violent demonstrations in Chicago" (258). In Berlin, the chauffeur totals Dodd’s Chevy; he tells his wife to buy a low-end Buick “from a dealer in Berlin" (258).

Despite his efforts to cool tensions between American Jews and Germany, Dodd learns on his way back to Europe that Goebbels has given a speech calling Jews “the syphilis of all European peoples" (260). Dodd feels swindled.