In the Garden of Beasts

In his pro­logue (“Das Vor­spiel”), Erik Lar­son writes, ​“There are no heroes here, at least not of the Schindler’s List vari­ety, but there are glim­mers of hero­ism.” What hero­ism did you find in this his­to­ry? Who were the great­est cowards?

Dis­cuss the sig­nif­i­cance of the title, derived from a lit­er­al trans­la­tion of the word Tier­garten. What is cap­tured in the decep­tive beau­ty of the gar­den, a refuge for many of the men and women described in the book? What does it take to trans­form a beau­ti­ful crea­ture into a ​“beast”?

How was Martha able to appear youth­ful, even vir­ginal, yet also sophis­ti­cat­ed? What made her attrac­tive to such a broad vari­ety of men, from lit­er­ary fig­ures to mil­i­tary lead­ers? What type of man was she most attract­ed to? How did these men com­pare to her father?

Study­ing for his doc­tor­ate the­sis in Leipzig, Dodd researched Amer­i­can his­to­ry while he was a stu­dent far from his home­land. Return­ing to Ger­many decades lat­er, what did he dis­cov­er about his home­land by look­ing at it as an outsider?

Lar­son describes Roosevelt’s strug­gle when no one would take the job as U.S. ambas­sador to Ger­many. Would you have accept­ed the job if you had been in Dodd’s situation?

Was Dodd’s lack of wealth a help or a hin­drance as an ambas­sador, espe­cial­ly in a time of eco­nom­ic depres­sion? Would Hitler have been more intim­i­dat­ed by an Amer­i­can ambas­sador who lived lavishly?

Dodd was repeat­ed­ly remind­ed that his biggest con­cern should be whether Ger­many would default on its mas­sive debt to the Unit­ed States. Why didn’t Wash­ing­ton link Messersmith’s warn­ings to America’s eco­nom­ic inter­ests? Do eco­nom­ic con­cerns still over­shad­ow human rights in for­eign pol­i­cy today? Are eco­nom­ics and human rights depen­dent on each other?

William Dodd longed to have time to write a com­plete his­to­ry of the rise and fall of America’s Old South, the land of his ances­tors. He also became embroiled in con­tro­ver­sy when he taught at Ran­dolph-Macon Col­lege and tried to expose unsa­vory aspects of the Con­fed­er­a­cy. How did his spe­cial­iza­tion in South­ern his­to­ry iron­i­cal­ly help him nav­i­gate Hitler’s Germany?

. In the Gar­den of Beasts cap­tures the years when out­siders refused to believe Hitler was any­thing more than a pass­ing sideshow. Dodd even sym­pa­thized with Hitler’s belief that the Ver­sailles Treaty gave Ger­many a raw deal, and that Amer­i­can banks were charg­ing Ger­many unfair inter­est rates. With­out the ben­e­fit of hind­sight, what would you have believed about the polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in Ger­many in the ear­ly 1930s?

How was it pos­si­ble for Dodd and Messer­smith to have such dif­fer­ent per­cep­tions of the same circumstances?

Dis­cuss Martha’s rela­tion­ship with Boris. What allure did the Sovi­et Union have for her? Why was she drawn to trav­el there?

Dis­cuss the Dodds’ evolv­ing atti­tudes toward Jews. Would you have hes­i­tat­ed to pro­tect the Panof­sky fam­i­ly (the Dodds’ landlords)?

What was the effect of the pow­er strug­gles with­in Hitler’s regime? How did para­noia both help and hin­der Hitler’s cause?

Larson’s research sources com­prise more than forty pages. Look through this sec­tion and make obser­va­tions about the process he under­took to recon­struct this his­to­ry. How does it ben­e­fit a soci­ety to have free access to his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments? Is there such a thing as ​“his­tor­i­cal truth”?

Which aspects of life in Berlin sur­prised you the most as you read the Dodds’ sto­ry? How does this ver­sion com­pare to oth­ers you’ve read?

What was Hitler’s for­mu­la for estab­lish­ing con­trol, despite lim­it­ed mil­i­tary and eco­nom­ic means? How did the slow buildup of pop­u­lar sup­port occur? What was the role of ran­dom arrests, pro­pa­gan­da, and a minor­i­ty scapegoat?

The book’s sub­ti­tle is ​“Love, Ter­ror, and an Amer­i­can Fam­i­ly in Hitler’s Berlin.” What fam­i­ly dynam­ic was at play in the Dodd house­hold over­seas? Against this back­drop, what forms of love thrived?

Dis­cuss the book’s epi­logue, ​“The Queer Bird in Exile.” What does Martha’s lega­cy as a fight­er for equal­i­ty say about her spir­it, and her tem­pera­ment? How did she final­ly over­come her naïveté? How would you have been affect­ed by an expe­ri­ence like hers in Berlin?