Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Love Terror and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson In the Garden of Beasts: Love Terror and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson. Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property. What can I do to prevent this in the future? If you are on a personal connection, like at home, you can run an anti-virus scan on your device to make sure it is not infected with malware. If you are at an office or shared network, you can ask the network administrator to run a scan across the network looking for misconfigured or infected devices. Another way to prevent getting this page in the future is to use Privacy Pass. You may need to download version 2.0 now from the Chrome Web Store. Cloudflare Ray ID: 660903fc3f132bc6 • Your IP : 116.202.236.252 • Performance & security by Cloudflare. In the Garden of Beasts. Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin. Set in Berlin in 1933-1934, the book tells the story of America’s first ambassador to Nazi , William E. Dodd, and his daughter Martha, as they experience the rising terror of Hitler’s rule. At first Martha is enthralled by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich, with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another, including with the surprisingly honorable first chief of the , . Her father resolves not to prejudge the new government, but soon the shadows deepen. Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance—and ultimately horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder unmasks Hitler’s true character and ruthless ambition. “By far his best and most enthralling work of novelistic history….Powerful, poignant…a transportingly true story.” —The New York Times. “Larson has meticulously researched the Dodds’ intimate witness to Hitler’s ascendancy and created an edifying narrative of this historical byway that has all the pleasures of a political thriller….a fresh picture of these terrible events.” —The New York Times Book Review. “Reads like an elegant thriller…utterly compelling… marvelous stuff. An excellent and entertaining book that deserves to be a bestseller, and probably will be.” —The Washington Post ”Tells a fascinating story brilliantly well.”—Financial Times ”Larson has done it again, expertly weaving together a fresh new narrative from ominous days of the 20th century.” —Associated Press. “Not to be missed.” —The Washington Times. “A master at writing true tales as riveting as fiction.” —People (3 1/2 stars) “Highly compelling…Larson brings Berlin roaring to life in all its glamour and horror…a welcome new chapter in the vast canon of World War II.” —Christian Science Monitor ””Mesmerizing…cinematic, improbable yet true.”—Philadelphia Inquirer ”Powerful.” —Vanity Fair “Dazzling….Reads like a suspense novel, replete with colorful characters, both familiar and those previously relegated to the shadows.”—The Chicago Sun-Times “[G]ripping, a nightmare narrative of a terrible time. It raises again the question never fully answered about the Nazi era—what evil humans are capable of, and what means are necessary to cage the beast.” —The Seattle Times. “In this mesmerizing portrait of the Nazi capital, Larson plumbs a far more diabolical urban cauldron than in his bestselling The Devil in the White City . . . a vivid, atmospheric panorama of the Third Reich and its leaders . . . . ” — Publishers Weekly (starred, boxed review) “ Excellent….suspenseful, [has] the feel of a John le Carré novel.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “A brilliant and often infuriating account of the experiences and evolving attitudes of the Dodd family during Hitler’s critical first year in power. With the benefit of hindsight, of course, the Dodds seem almost criminally ignorant, but Larson treats them with a degree of compassion that elevates them to tragic status .” — Booklist (starred, boxed review) “ Chillingly portrays the terror and oppression that slowly settle over Germany in 1933.” — Library Journal. With this new book, I invite you to journey to Berlin during Hitler’s first year in power, 1933, in the company of a real-life father and daughter from Chicago who suddenly found themselves transported to the heart of the city. They had no conception of the harrowing days that lay ahead. At the time, nothing was certain—Hitler did not yet possess absolute power, and few outsiders expected his government to survive. The family encountered a city suffused with energy and optimism, with some of the most striking, avant-garde buildings in the world. Its theaters, concert halls, and cafés were jammed; the streets teemed with well-dressed attractive people. But my two protagonists were about to begin an education that would change them forever, with ultimately tragic consequences. Selected for the summer 2011 Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. The father was William E. Dodd, a mild-mannered professor who, much to his surprise and everyone else’s, was picked by President Roosevelt to be America’s first ambassador to . His daughter, Martha, was 24 years old, and chose to come along for the adventure, and to escape a dead marriage to a New York banker. They and the rest of their family settled in a grand old house on the city’s central park, the Tiergarten—in literal translation, the Garden of Beasts. Dodd expected to encounter the same warm citizenry he had known three decades earlier while a graduate student in Leipzig; he hoped to use reason and quiet persuasion to temper Hitler’s government. Martha found the “New Germany” utterly enthralling, totally unlike the horrific realm depicted in newspapers back home. For her, as for many other foreign visitors at the time, the transformation of Germany was thrilling and not at all frightening. Not yet. As that first year unfolded they experienced days full of energy, intrigue, and romance—and, ultimately, terror, on a scale they could never have imagined. Their experience tells volumes about why the world took so long to recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler. Here are some of the people you’ll meet in the Garden of Beasts: — Rudolf Diels , the young, handsome first chief of the newly established Gestapo, who proved to be a man of surprising integrity—and became one of Martha’s lovers. — Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl , the gigantic, buoyant Harvard grad who played piano for Hitler and who believed Martha might be just the woman to tame the Führer’s soul. — Hermann Göring , whose immense size and passion for flamboyant uniforms made him the brunt of private mockery, yet whose lethal nature would soon be shockingly revealed. — U.S. Under Secretary of State William Phillips , who hated Jews and led a cadre of like-minded State Department officials in a quiet campaign to unseat Dodd from his post. — George Messersmith , the “peppery” American consul general who stood up to the Nazis at every turn—and wanted Dodd’s job. — , the handsome, boot-licking vice chancellor whose staff maneuvered him into making a dramatic anti-Hitler speech—and thereby set off a horrific cataclysm of terror and murder. As the Dodds’ first year progresses, you’ll accompany them to parties and banquets, visit Göring’s bizarre country estate, and take drives through the German countryside to evade Nazi surveillance. You’ll feel the fear and tension rise in Berlin as Hitler gains power and confronts a potential rebellion, until the Dodds find machine guns outside their home and Berlin awash with blood and terror. . . . Welcome to the Garden of Beasts. Erik Larson Writing Styles in In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin. In the Garden of Beasts is the story of William E. Dodd who was the United States Ambassador to Germany from 1933 through 1937, precisely when Adolph Hitler's ascension to power was taking place. With obvious signs of trouble brewing, diplomats were not vying for the job as US Ambassador to Germany. Filling that position was one of the first and most difficult challenges facing the the newly elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt. William E. Dodd was a history professor at the University of Chicago where he had served for decades. Although he always had political aspirations, he was never called upon to serve his country. In 1933, Dodd was frustrated that his career at the University had really never taken off and that he had been by-passed by years for diplomatic positions within the government. He was on the verge of retiring from the university to devote. Cookie Consent and Choices. NPR’s sites use cookies, similar tracking and storage technologies, and information about the device you use to access our sites (together, “cookies”) to enhance your viewing, listening and user experience, personalize content, personalize messages from NPR’s sponsors, provide social media features, and analyze NPR’s traffic. This information is shared with social media, sponsorship, analytics, and other vendors or service providers. See details. You may click on “ Your Choices ” below to learn about and use cookie management tools to limit use of cookies when you visit NPR’s sites. You can adjust your cookie choices in those tools at any time. If you click “ Agree and Continue ” below, you acknowledge that your cookie choices in those tools will be respected and that you otherwise agree to the use of cookies on NPR’s sites. Quicklet on Erik Larson's In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin. Erik Larson paints a compelling picture of 1933 Berlin, a time when was rising but did not yet hold absolute power and, in fact, few expected his government to survive. Larson explores the rise of from the perspective of the newly arrived U.S. ambassador and his family. William E. Dodd, a circumspect professor and unlikely candidate for Americas first ambassador to Nazi Germany, struggles with the protocol and conflicting demands of his heart, his nation, and his duty while his daughter, Martha, finds the social scene vibrant and thrilling. In time, they come to see the ugly truth about Hitler and his plans but even then their efforts to raise the alarm are largely discounted back home. MEET THE AUTHOR. With degrees in journalism and history from the University of Southern California, Arwen Bicknell has worked on newspaper copydesks across the country for more than 20 years. In her free time she writes novels and tries to get them published. You can read her blog at arwenbicknell.com. EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK. Protocol and promiscuity. These are the two angles from which Larson chooses to explore the power-grabbing days of Adolph Hitler leading up to the , when Hitler purged his enemies and laid the last bit of groundwork to seize complete power in Germany. Tired of being overworked at the University of Chicago and in search of a sinecure, mild-mannered professor William E. Dodd historian, Jeffersonian Democrat and would-be author of the definitive work on the antebellum South instead lands in a job he is woefully ill-equipped to perform. Tapped to serve as the U.S. ambassador in Berlin, he packs up his family and together they all make the journey into a foreign land and an even more foreign culture: that of the diplomatic and political elite. Larson does a good job of balancing the diplomats headaches and blunders with the effusive enthusiasm of his socialite daughter, who manages to land as lovers several of the leading U.S. and German luminaries, from Carl Sandburg and Max Delbruck to Gestapo chief Rudolf Diels and Soviet spy Boris Winogradov. While the characters naivete is believable, that doesnt necessarily mean they are entirely likeable. William Dodds assessment of the situation appears credible, if sweetly foolish. Martha Dodd, on the other hand, comes off as almost obstinately flighty and shallow, and the fact that she turned her allegiances from Hitlers Nazis to Stalins Communists without appearing to have learned anything simply bolsters that impression. Quicklet on Erik Larson's In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin. Erik Larson's In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin.