Oh my! What a book. It was written so very well, and with so much information, I can well imagination Mr. Larson's comments "I did not realize as I ventured into those dark days of Hitler's rule how much of the darkness would infiltrate my soul.."
The book centers around mild mannered, William E. Dodd, historian, scholar, an intelligent but quiet man who becomes America's first Ambassador to Hitler's Germany.. He takes his wife, and two children with him - together with their trust old car, and plans to live his usual quiet life - thinking he will have time to complete his first of three books on the old South.. He soon realizes that he has no time to do such writing as he is immersed in in 1933 Berlin. He sympathizes with the Germans, and seems to be as anti-Semitic as many Germans, even asking the government to 're-assign' the Jewish employees at the Embassy so as not to upset the Germans...He tries to down play the attacks on Americans (when they do not salute to the flag or the Nazis). What is interesting, that the book also touches upon the anti-Semitism in the United States also..
By the end of his appointment, he comes to hate the regime, seeing finally what it represents, and refuses to attend the rallies of the Nazis.... thus presenting an excuse to those in Washington who have long been seeking his dismissal... They felt that if an Ambassador refuses to attend functions with the very people he was sent there to be with.... then what point? That and the enormous amount of money that Germany owed to America whch he had no success in securing, and his thoughts on the excesses spent by diplomats which he disagreed with......
There contains so much attention to detail, that the book truly takes you into the atmosphere of Germany in 1933, and 1934 as Hitler took power as Chancellor, the inner power battles within his cabinet, the brutality of the regime.. Rudolph Diels, once head of the Gestapo commented on how his office seemingly attracted every psychopath. It alludes in great detail to the many affairs of Martha Dodds, Ambassador Dodds' daughter who had affairs with Rudolph Diels, Boris Winogradoz (a member of the NKVD - precursor to the KGB), Ernst Hanfstaengl, confidant of Hitler, a French diplomat.. and the list goes on and on... The book takes us through those years, how America (and the World) could have stopped Hitler - and Germany would have been behind any such action).
In closure, Mr. Larson very nicely writes what becomes of those predominant people mentioned in the book after the war. The only failing (to me) was it didn't recount what happened to Bella Fromm "Auntie Voss" a Jewish lady who was a well-known columnist and went to all of the parties alongside the Nazis... It mentioend how her daughter went to the U.S. but nothing of her.. I was heartened to read (from the itnernet) that she left Germany in 1938 to the US also..
A great book. Published in 2011
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