In the Garden of Beasts

Unable to present his credentials to the ailing President Hindenburg, Dodd familiarizes himself with the ins and outs of the embassy. His protocol mistakes annoy counselor Gordon. Meanwhile, Dodd finds the halfhearted work ethic of the wealthy, indolent embassy staffers appalling. He learns that Hitler doesn’t yet have the full support of Hindenburg, who has control of the army, and that the paramilitary Storm Troopers (“Sturmabteilung,” or SA) seek to control the army.

Searching for moderate voices in the government, Dodd meets with Foreign Affairs Minister Konstantin von Neurath, who wants to be a calming influence on Hitler’s inner circle. Neurath believes “that if he would only stay in office, do his duty, and preserve foreign contacts, one fine day he would wake up and find the Nazis gone" (66).

Storm Troopers severely beat Philip Zuckerman, an American Jew, and his German wife in broad daylight. The couple is hospitalized, and the pregnant Mrs. Zuckerman loses her baby and “would never be able to bear another" (67). The US consulate gets involved; they can sue on behalf of the American, but not his wife.

Consul General Messersmith is frustrated that visitors remain blind to these incidents. He writes to Washington that "the German government had begun a campaign ‘to influence Americans coming to Germany in forming a favorable opinion concerning happenings in the country’” (68), keeping them too busy to learn the truth. 

Martha quickly becomes a sought-after guest at diplomatic parties: “She also became a regular at a nightly gathering of twenty or so correspondents" (70) where she meets journalists William Shirer and Webb Miller. The meetings, held at a local restaurant, often draw “visits from the first and second secretaries of foreign embassies and various Nazi press officials, and on occasion even Gestapo chief Rudolf Diels" (70). Shirer calls Martha “pretty, vivacious, a mighty arguer" (70).

At a party, Martha meets Nazi Foreign Press Chief, Ernst Hanfstaengl. At six feet four inches and 250 pounds, Hanfstaengl is a giant, but everyone calls him by his nickname, “Putzi.” Hanfstaengl is friendly and likable, though Messersmith believes he “is totally insincere, and one cannot believe a word he says" (72).

A Harvard graduate and friend of Teddy Roosevelt Jr, Hanfstaengl “dominated any social milieu" (73), entertaining guests with his piano playing. After years in America, he returns to Germany, where he becomes a friend of Hitler’s. Hanfstaengl takes a strong interest in Martha but is dismissive of her father, writing: “At a time when it needed a robust millionaire to compete with the flamboyance of the Nazis, he teetered round self-effacingly as if he were still on his college campus" (73). 

Chicago Daily News correspondent Edgar Mowrer writes severely critical reports of the Nazis. Because of his articles, “Hitler’s government wanted him out of the country” (74), and threats against him increase. Both Hanfstaengl and Martha get the idea that Mowrer might be a “secret” Jew; Hanfstaengl spreads it as a rumor. Mowrer asks Dodd to intercede, but Dodd demurs. Instead, Dodd and Messersmith appeal to Mowrer to leave Germany for his own safety; reluctantly, Mowrer complies.

German chemist Fritz Haber also becomes a refugee. He is “awarded the 1918 Nobel Prize for chemistry for discovering a means of mining nitrogen from air and thus allowing the manufacture of plentiful, cheap fertilizer" (77). During World War I Haber also invents poison chlorine gas and the means to disperse it against enemy soldiers. A war hero in Germany, he is a pariah elsewhere despite his assertion that, in war, “death was death.” Haber’s wife, appalled by his work, protests by committing suicide.

As director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, the German government orders Haber to fire many of his Jewish scientists. A Protestant of Semitic background, Haber refuses and resigns. He appeals to Dodd for passage to America, but Dodd erroneously believes the immigration quota is filled. Haber finds his way out of Germany and dies of a heart attack six months later in Switzerland. The Nazis later convert one of his inventions, an insecticide, into the concentration-camp gas, Zyklon B.

Jewish workers face more restrictions, and “a draft existed of a new law that would effectively deprive Jews of their citizenship and all civil rights" (81). Dodd doesn’t want to interfere, believing other countries have the right to rule themselves, even if they make bad mistakes along the way. 

Bill Jr “enrolled in a doctoral program at the University of Berlin" (83), where he will live most of each week. Dodd wants to escape the opulence of the hotel, so Mrs. Dodd and Martha go house hunting. They notice that, oddly, “so many grand old mansions were available for lease so fully and luxuriously furnished" (84). They find a mansion for lease across from the Tiergarten, owned by “Alfred Panofsky, the wealthy Jewish proprietor of a private bank" (84).

Panofsky offers the first three floors at a low rate; he and his mother will retain the fourth floor. Privately, Panofsky hopes the presence of the American ambassador will shield his family. Dodd finds the place lavish but affordable; it also is “sufficiently impressive to communicate American power and prestige" and “grand enough to allow the entertainment of government and diplomatic guests without embarrassment" (85). He accepts, and the Dodds move in.

The mansion “quickly became known as a haven where people could speak their minds without fear" and where the atmosphere is casual, unlike the “rigid ceremony as observed in other diplomatic houses" (87). Within the enormous building, Martha finds herself free to entertain her men friends as she sees fit.

The Dodds, with Correspondent Quentin Reynolds, travel south in their imported Chevy on a sightseeing tour. Dodd and his wife break off at Leipzig to visit his old university: “Martha, Bill Jr, and Reynolds continued south, with the aim of eventually reaching Austria" (90).