Why a Booktrail?
1933: A mild-mannered academic from Chicago becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany
In The Garden of Beasts
What you need to know before your trail
Berlin,1933
A year that proves to be a turning point in history.
Dodd and his family observe at first-hand the many changes – some subtle, some disturbing, and some horrifically violent – that signal Hitler’s consolidation of power. Dodd has little choice but to associate with key figures in the Nazi party, his increasingly concerned cables make little impact on an indifferent U.S. State Department, while daughter Martha is drawn to the Nazis and their vision of a ‘New Germany’ and has a succession of affairs with senior party players, including first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels.
But as the year darkens, Dodd and his daughter find their lives transformed and any last illusion they might have about Hitler are shattered by the violence of the ‘Night of the Long Knives’ in the summer of 1934 that established him as supreme dictator.
Travel Guide
Berlin,1933
The reality of Hitler’s government
The Germany of the 1930s was a very dangerous place indeed but the real danger was that no one really knew what was happening right before their eyes.
“ With few exceptions, the men who are running this Government are of a mentality that you and I cannot understand. Some of them are psychopathic cases and would ordinarily be receiving treatment elsewhere”
The author explains that he didn’t realise the effect writing this book would have on him. The darkness infiltrated his soul he says and living amongst Nazis day to day was a trying experience. He asks himself how those who actually lived through it managed to survived.
“These were complicated people moving through a complicated time, before the monsters declared their true intention”
Booktrail Boarding Pass: In The Garden of Beasts
Destination: Berlin Author/Guide: Erik Larson Departure Time: WW2, 1930s
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