In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin

Erik Larson, bestselling author of The Devil in White City, has done it again with his highly readable, nonfiction narrative of an unassuming college professor who becomes the first U. S. ambassador to Germany.  In 1933, William E. Dodd brings his wife and two adult children to Berlin at the beginning of Hitler’s rise to power.  While his daughter, Martha, is enjoying the extravagant parties of high society and the attention of  several handsome young men of the Third Reich, Dodd and his wife struggle to fit in with the more influential members of Germany’s political spectrum.  As the horror of Hitler’s violence and murderous acts reveal more and more of his true character and intent, Dodd watches in alarm as the State Department continues business as usual– with indifference.  In the Garden of Beasts offers a rare, eyewitness account of the unfolding events leading up to the world’s second great war. It pulls back the veil of incomprehensibility as to how such an evil man was left officially unopposed until Europe was awash in blood and terror.

Fascinating read!

–Penny