Book Review - In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Author Erik Larson

This new book by the author of Devil in the White City, Isaac’s Storm, and Thunderstruck chronicles the time spent in Berlin by William Dodd, the American ambassador to Germany, and his family. Dodd, his wife, daughter, and son expected one kind of Tiergarten and found themselves in the dark recesses of the other.

While many books have been written about Hitler and his Germany, Larson became intrigued by the question of why it took so long to understand the dangers of Hitler, and why no persons or governments tried to stop him when it would have been so easy to alter history that first year of the tyrant’s rise.

Larson focuses on Dodd himself and his beautiful, wild daughter, Martha, as representatives of persons viewing these events from within the country, but outside of the power structure, and sheltered from consequences (by rank, not by citizenship). Unassuming, frugal, scholarly, Dodd was not Roosevelt’s first choice for the ambassadorship. But weary of his duties at the University of Chicago, and hoping for enough free time to finish his massive study, The Old South, the professor accepted a post no one else wanted. After all, he was fond of Germany and the Germans from student days at the University of Leipzig 30 years earlier.

From the start, however, Dodd felt out of place. He wanted to live only on his salary, in contrast to the wealthy members of the “Pretty Good Club”, the other staffers at the Embassy and Consulate. They had the ear of the State Department, which had as its main concern the repayment of Germany’s debt from World War I. If Hitler could accomplish that impossible task, many in the U.S. government were willing to have a policy of “non-interference in another country’s internal affairs”. Although Dodd became increasingly concerned with the sanctioned violence of the Storm Troopers and the increasing madness of Hitler’s behavior, the pervading sense of constant fear within the populace and the self-interest of the officials made his warnings ineffectual.

For Martha, however, the first years in Berlin were a sparkling round of parties, exciting new friends, and exotic lovers, including Gestapo chief Rudolf Diels. It was only when she became aware of the atrocities being committed and the danger her Jewish friends were in that she truly understood the evil of the Nazis. Falling in love with a Russian, she then flirted with Communism (and was a target of KGB recruiters).

His warnings about Hitler’s increasingly obvious preparations for war were ignored and even mocked. Dodd felt a failure when he was recalled from his Ambassadorship. History and Larson have vindicated him.

By Carole Ann Clark: March 10, 2026 - Great Falls, Mt