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As the title indicates, this is a creepy work of nonfiction. Erik Larson, popular author of (among other things) The Devil in the White City, here tackles the subject of one American family living in Berlin in the years leading up to World War II. William E. Dodd was an unassuming professor of history in Chicago in the early 1930′s, wishing for a little more free time to finish his life’s work, a 4-volume history of “the Old South.” He lobbied Roosevelt, through his modest political connections, for a quiet diplomat’s post to somewhere like Belgium or the Netherlands. There he hoped to settle down to finish his books and not have to do too much real diplomatic work, to which he readily confessed he was not well suited. Instead, owing to a strange combination of forces – mostly, no one else being willing to take the post – he was appointed to be the United States’ diplomat to Berlin in 1933. He traveled to Hitler’s Germany with his wife and grown son, Bill Jr., both of whom play almost no role in the story, and with his grown daughter, Martha, who stars next to the elder Dodd himself.

William E. Dodd is a conscientious man, rather to the point of annoyance. His sense of humor is wry and not well appreciated in diplomatic circles. He comes from a modest background and lives on a professor’s salary, and now a diplomat’s, which is quite moderate; in Berlin he plans to live within the bounds of that salary, which is the first time he offends protocol, but not the last. As Larson explains, diplomats are traditionally wealthy men of great style – valets, fancy chauffeured cars, fine wines, grand balls and the like – and make up what Larson quotes one diplomat as calling a “pretty good club.” Dodd will fail to fit into this club, and will, to the aggravation of all, criticize it throughout his tenure.

Martha is a sultry young woman very comfortable with her charms and her ability to wield her sexuality as a weapon against the men in her world; she enjoys men, and sex, and is in the process of ending a secret marriage even when she sets sail for Germany. When she gets there, she is charmed by the Nazis, handsome and blonde and polite and uniformed, and is not unhappy to be characterized as a “little Nazi” herself. Among the lovers we assume she took in Germany (Larson points out what we don’t know for sure, but makes a strong case) are a Gestapo leader, a French diplomat, a close assistant to Hitler, and eventually a Russian diplomatic assistant who turns out to be a Soviet spy. She is even at one point asked to be “Hitler’s woman,” and introduced to him, but nothing comes of it (not for lack of her attraction to the man of power, however). By the end of the Dodds’ years in Berlin, however, she has noted the evils of the Third Reich and flirts with becoming a spy for Stalin, herself.

Larson’s fine work here is in bringing a time and a place to life, and it raises goosebumps. Hitler’s Berlin is chilling, in large part because we, the modern readers, have the benefit of hindsight, and it is deeply disturbing to watch humanly flawed men and women walk around that time and place without realizing just how bad things are going to get. There is willful ignorance, naturally, as well as antisemitism in varying degrees: the Dodds share this prejudice with many of their contemporaries, and it helps them to excuse Hitler’s regime longer than they should… but again, this is all with the 20/20 vision we possess today. It’s difficult to imagine the tolerance shown by the United States, and Dodd, and the world, for Hitler; but this is history.

The decision to showcase Martha alongside Dodd was a fine one. They are two very different characters, both tending to minimize Germany’s faults at the start of the story but both (very differently) eventually coming to understand and fear the changes to come. When the Dodds left Berlin in 1937, the United States were yet years from a war with Germany, but Dodd had begun to prophecy some of the terrors to come.

Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts (poetically named for the literal translation of Tiergarten, a garden & neighborhood in Berlin where the Dodds lived) is to my tastes a great way to read history. The story electrifies, brings the past to life, and promises to faithfully follow the sources available. An enjoyable and worthwhile, if unnerving, read (or listen).

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: audio, history, nonfiction | 2 Comments »

This is my first experience with the very well-respected David McCullough. “Americans in Paris” is a huge topic; but if anyone can do it justice, we’re told, McCullough might be that one. This feels like a quite comprehensive study of Americans in Paris in the 1800′s, complete with name-dropping and historical context. (I say “feels like” because I don’t have the historical knowledge myself to confirm or question McCullough’s comprehensiveness!)

McCullough follows Americans in Paris more or less chronologically, starting with the 1830′s and following through the end of the century. His subjects range over various disciplines and the story he tells seems to ramble, from art & literature, to medicine, to culture, war, and back to art. In the 1830′s we meet those who were among the first to make the journey, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Fenimore Cooper, Samuel Morse, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. A number of chapters are devoted to visual artists and writers, and the artistic superiority of France and the Continent which was only beginning to be challenged by Americans. Samuel Morse not only painted his masterpiece in Paris, but began work on what would become the telegraph; Harriet Beecher Stowe sought escape from the publicity following Uncle Tom’s Cabin; the first American female medical students studied there; and Charles Sumner’s observation of black students in Paris would lead him to a new understanding of black Americans’ abilities, and help him become one of our first abolitionist Congressmen. Rather fewer chapters* are devoted to the medicals, but I enjoyed very much McCullough’s descriptions of the École de Médecine and the American students who studied there. At the time, France was the place to study medicine, and the personalities who taught it loomed large; their role in this section of the book was very entertaining to me. (Also, I thought of The Lady and Her Monsters as McCullough discussed the dissection of cadavers, and their sources.)

Moving forward a few decades, later waves of American visitors to Paris would more commonly bring their families with them to live a fuller life than that of the student or artist; and there would be many more of them. One of the strongest sections of The Greater Journey describes the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), and the role of American ambassador Elihu Washburne. He was the only ambassador who stayed, and he saved innumerable Americans as well as Germans, helping them evacuate and generally organizing and supporting – literally, in many cases, as he fed & boarded a number of the displaced. He was well regarded for this work, above and beyond the call of duty. The Franco-Prussian War (which felt vaguely familiar to me from my recent readings of de Maupassant), is well told; and McCullough’s description the Paris Commune is evocative and powerful.

Another figure that receives personal attention is sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, an Irish-American kid from a family of decidedly modest means who travels to Paris and becomes a world-renowned artist. You may know him for his bronze Robert Gould Shaw Memorial on Boston Common and his statue of William Tecumseh Sherman at a corner in New York’s Central Park. Saint-Gaudens’ life is examined from his youth through his old age and death; I found this study of an artist to be a very interesting sub-story within The Greater Journey. Likewise the life of Mary Cassatt, an American painter famous for Impressionism who was significantly shaped by Paris.

In other words, while McCullough seems almost to ramble amongst various people, disciplines, and issues, each of his individual subjects is well-treated and fascinating; and any seeming lack of structure is happily tolerated because all the stories are so enjoyable. It’s not really that the book lacks structure, only that following Parisian Americans chronologically takes us through all these twists and turns. The whole is highly readable and a good primer in French/American history in the 1800′s. For example, one consistent thread throughout is the close relationship shared by our two countries during this century, beginning with General Lafayette’s support of the American Revolution in 1776.

The Greater Journey is an interesting and enjoyable read, a good central place to learn a number of individual facts and anecdotes about Americans traveling and living in Paris in 1830-1900. I have the impression that McCullough’s research is good; I am charmed.

*I am not entirely clear on the proportions of the book devoted to each subject, because I listened to the audio and thus could not grab chunks of pages for visual comparison. It is a shortcoming of the audio format. You get only my impressions.

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