In The Garden of Beasts: 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
Imagine
the year is 1933 and you have just been sent to Berlin as America’s Ambassador
to Germany. You have brought your wife and two grown children. You have loved
Germany since attending school there years prior and have looked forward to
returning. You’ve heard rumors of Hitler’s regime and how they are dealing with
the Jewish problem, but you don’t have any reason to believe that this is more
than hearsay. You arrive and see the pomp and circumstance that surrounds
Hitler and his followers. You grow to realize that everything is not as it
seems. American civilians are being attacked and the German soldiers involved
are not being punished. Other things also catch your attention like the
incident your daughter witnessed where a woman was stripped of her clothing,
beaten, and paraded in the streets for having a relationship with a Jewish man.
Time passes and you become disenchanted but how do you communicate that to the
President of the United States? How do you make him understand that if action
isn’t taken now that there will be war? This is just a glimpse of the life of
William Dodd and the years he spent in Germany during the rise of Hitler.
I’ve
asked myself before how in the hell Hitler was able to rise to power and commit
the atrocities that would come to define him. The answer is denial. Time and
time again the answer, to me at least, is denial and willful ignorance. No one
believed that he would ever actually commit the heinous acts that he was
committing. Dodd was in denial himself until it became evident that Hitler
wanted complete control, would gain complete control and would go to war. No
one wanted to believe Dodd so they didn’t. World War II was a result of
everyone’s willful ignorance. Larson produced with this nonfiction novel an
amazing portrait of what life was like for Dodd and his family, especially his
daughter Martha whose relationships with people in Germany would cause
controversy, in in 1930’s Berlin.
In The Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and
an American Family in Berlin is a biography of William Dodd but it is
written as a nonfiction novel. It is dramatic, informative, moves well and the
world of 1930’s Germany is very well crafted. I enjoyed this biography. This
time in history is filled with so many different elements and so much depth
that it’s easy to get lost in the details. That didn’t happen with Larson. He
was able to keep me interested and involved in this story. The tense atmosphere
was felt throughout the pages. As a reader knowing the worst was to come, I
found myself looking for the aspects of Hitler’s regime that I knew were going
to change. Larson alludes to all what is to come while revealing one page at a
time that things were changing and that those changes would lead to
devastation. I can easily recommend this novel and give it 4 out of 5 stars. Larson’s
writing style is one I enjoy and I am looking forward to reading more from him.
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