In the Garden of Beasts - Erik Larson

In Greek mythology, Cassandra of Troy was given the gift of prophecy but was cursed by Apollo so that when she spoke her prophecies, no one would believe her. Cassandra see the future destruction of Troy and despite her warnings of the Greeks hiding within the gifted Trojan Horse, she is not believed. The city is sacked, Cassandra herself is captured, raped, and becomes a concubine to King Agamemnon before she is killed by Agamemnon's wife and her lover. The Greeks really have some uplifting stories, no? 

All this is to say is that sometimes life is unkind to figures of prophecy, or those that are able to discern outcomes before a wider populace can see them. William Dodd, Ambassador to Germany from 1933 to 1937 was one such figure. A quiet college professor, Dodd was Roosevelt's eighth or ninth choice to serve as ambassador to Nazi Germany. It seems other men weren't interested in risking their diplomatic careers by stepping into such a politically sensitive arena. But that didn't mean that those same men weren't eager to criticize Dodd for the job he was doing. 

Not fitting the typical mold of an ambassador, Dodd tried to live within his ambassador's salary and clung to principle over traditional trappings of statesmanship. He refused to attend the large Nazi rallies at Nuremberg. He gave a rousing speech of the dangers of autocratic leadership. He cultivated relationships with moderate elements of the Nazi party. All this while receiving the scorn and derision of the State Department officials in Washington who were intent on ignoring Dodd's warnings of potential calamity in Germany and insisting that Dodd remain vigilant in attempts to secure American debt owed from the previous World War. 

William Dodd 1869-1940

Dodd was way ahead of everyone in understanding Hitler's intentions. And Larson spends 90% of the book engaged in Dodd's first 18 months as Ambassador where Dodd's own hopes and optimism for a moderating force within Germany are diminished and then extinguished as Hitler wraps himself in greater layers of power. That a hundred or more (counts vary by historian) members of the party were killed in one evening at Hitler's command without trial or conviction was an event that shocked Dodd and should by all accounts have shocked and angered the world. But Hitler saw that he was able to get away with this action and so was able to more steadily increase his own ambitions while the world sat idly by. That Dodd was scorned by the State Department "leadership" for this is embarrassing and some part of me hopes those gentlemen felt their own comeuppance at being so terribly wrong. 

Larson does a good job creating a sense of foreboding and generally building tension as Dodd would have felt it. The last chapters seemed rushed, as I would have liked more analysis of Dodd's actions following the full outbreak of the war. I think some of the earlier material could have been trimmed down in order to address these aspects as well. But overall this book was highly informative, impeccably researched, and readable.

4/5 Stars