In The Garden Of Beasts Part 3

Kaltenborn dismissed the idea. He knew a lot of these correspondents. They were prejudiced, he claimed, and so was Messersmith.

He continued his journey, though in short order he would be forced in a most compelling way to reevaluate his views.

CHAPTER 8.

Meeting Putzi With the help of Sigrid Schultz and Quentin Reynolds, Martha inserted herself readily into the social fabric of Berlin. Smart, flirtatious, and good-looking, she became a favorite among the younger officers of the foreign diplomatic corps and a sought-after guest at the informal parties, the so-called bean parties and beer evenings, held after the obligatory functions of the day had concluded. She also became a regular at a nightly gathering of twenty or so correspondents who convened in an Italian restaurant, Die Taverne, owned by a German and his Belgian wife. The restaurant always set aside a big, round table in a corner for the group-a Stammtisch Stammtisch, meaning a table for regulars-whose members, including Schultz, typically began to arrive at about ten in the evening and might linger until as late as four the next morning. The group had achieved a kind of fame. "Everybody else in the restaurant is watching them and trying to overhear what they are saying," wrote Christopher Isherwood in Goodbye to Berlin Goodbye to Berlin. "If you have a piece of news to bring them-the details of an arrest, or the address of a victim whose relatives might be interviewed-then one of the journalists leaves the table and walks up and down with you outside, in the street." The table often drew cameo visits from the first and second secretaries of foreign emba.s.sies and various n.a.z.i press officials, and on occasion even Gestapo chief Rudolf Diels. William Shirer, a later member of the group, saw Martha as a worthy partic.i.p.ant: "pretty, vivacious, a mighty arguer."

In this new world, the calling card was the crucial currency. The character of an individual's card reflected the character of the individual, his perception of himself, or how he wanted the world to perceive him. The n.a.z.i leadership invariably had the largest cards with the most imposing t.i.tles, usually printed in some bold Teutonic font. Prince Louis Ferdinand, son of Germany's crown prince, a sweet-tempered young man who had worked in a Ford a.s.sembly plant in America, had the tiniest of cards, with only his name and t.i.tle. His father, on the other hand, had a large card with a photograph of himself on one side, in full princely regalia, the other side blank. Cards were versatile. Notes scrawled on cards served as invitations to dinner or c.o.c.ktails or more compelling a.s.signations. By simply crossing out the last name, a man or woman conveyed friendship, interest, even intimacy.

Martha acc.u.mulated dozens of cards, and saved them. Cards from Prince Louis, soon to become a suitor and friend; from Sigrid Schultz, of course; and from Mildred Fish Harnack, who had been present on the station platform when Martha and her parents arrived in Berlin. A correspondent for the United Press, Webb Miller, wrote on his card, "If you have nothing more important to do why not have dinner with me." He provided his hotel and room number.

AT LAST SHE MET her first senior n.a.z.i. As promised, Reynolds took her to the party of his English friend, "a lavish and fairly drunken affair." Well after their arrival, an immense man with a brick of coal-black hair slammed into the room-"in a sensational manner," Martha later recalled-pa.s.sing his card left and right, with a decided emphasis on recipients who were young and pretty. At six feet four inches in height, he was a head taller than most men in the room and weighed easily 250 pounds. A female observer once described him as "supremely awkward-looking-an enormous puppet on slack strings." Even amid the din of the party his voice stood out like thunder over rain. her first senior n.a.z.i. As promised, Reynolds took her to the party of his English friend, "a lavish and fairly drunken affair." Well after their arrival, an immense man with a brick of coal-black hair slammed into the room-"in a sensational manner," Martha later recalled-pa.s.sing his card left and right, with a decided emphasis on recipients who were young and pretty. At six feet four inches in height, he was a head taller than most men in the room and weighed easily 250 pounds. A female observer once described him as "supremely awkward-looking-an enormous puppet on slack strings." Even amid the din of the party his voice stood out like thunder over rain.

This, Reynolds told Martha, was Ernst Hanfstaengl. Officially, as stated on his card, he was Auslandspressechef Auslandspressechef-foreign press chief-of the National Socialist Party, though in fact this was largely a made-up job with little real authority, a sop granted by Hitler to acknowledge Hanfstaengl's friendship ever since the early days, when Hitler often came to Hanfstaengl's home.

Upon being introduced, Hanfstaengl told Martha, "Call me Putzi." It was his childhood nickname, used universally by his friends and acquaintances and by all the city's correspondents.

This was the giant that Martha by now had heard so much about-he of the unp.r.o.nounceable, unspellable last name, adored by many correspondents and diplomats, loathed and distrusted by many others, this latter camp including George Messersmith, who claimed "an instinctive dislike" for the man. "He is totally insincere, and one cannot believe a word he says," Messersmith wrote. "He pretends the closest friendship with those whom he is at the same time trying to undermine or whom he may be directly attacking."

Martha's friend Reynolds at first liked Hanfstaengl. In contrast with other n.a.z.is, the man "went out of his way to be cordial to Americans," Reynolds recalled. Hanfstaengl offered to arrange interviews that otherwise might be impossible to get and sought to present himself to the city's correspondents as one of the boys, "informal, hail-fellow-well-met, charming." Reynolds's affection for Hanfstaengl eventually cooled, however. "You had to know Putzi to really dislike him. That," he noted, "came later."

Hanfstaengl spoke English beautifully. At Harvard he had been a member of the Hasty Pudding Club, a theatrical group, and forever bent the minds of his audience when for one performance he dressed as a Dutch girl named Gretchen Spootsfeiffer. He had come to know cla.s.smate Theodore Roosevelt Jr., eldest son of Teddy Roosevelt, and had become a regular visitor to the White House. One story held that Hanfstaengl had played a piano in the White House bas.e.m.e.nt with such verve that he broke seven strings. As an adult he had run his family's art gallery in New York, where he had met his wife-to-be. After moving to Germany, the couple had grown close to Hitler and made him G.o.dfather of their newborn son, Egon. The boy called him "Uncle Dolf." Sometimes when Hanfstaengl played for Hitler, the dictator wept.

Martha liked Hanfstaengl. He was not at all what she expected a senior n.a.z.i official to be, "so blatantly proclaiming his charm and talent." He was big and full of energy, with giant, long-fingered hands-hands that Martha's friend Bella Fromm would describe as being "of almost frightening dimensions"-and a personality that bounded readily from one extreme to another. Martha wrote, "He had a soft, ingratiating manner, a beautiful voice which he used with conscious artistry, sometimes whispering low and soft, the next minute bellowing and shattering the room." He dominated any social milieu. "He could exhaust anyone and, from sheer perseverance, out-shout or out-whisper the strongest man in Berlin."

Hanfstaengl took a liking to Martha as well but did not think much of her father. "He was a modest little Southern history professor, who ran his emba.s.sy on a shoestring and was probably trying to save money out of his pay," Hanfstaengl wrote in a memoir. "At a time when it needed a robust millionaire to compete with the flamboyance of the n.a.z.is, he teetered round self-effacingly as if he were still on his college campus." Hanfstaengl dismissively referred to him as "Papa" Dodd.

"The best thing about Dodd," Hanfstaengl wrote, "was his attractive blond daughter, Martha, whom I got to know very well." Hanfstaengl found her charming, vibrant, and clearly a woman of s.e.xual appet.i.te.

Which gave him an idea.

CHAPTER 9.

Death Is Death Dodd sought to maintain his objective stance despite early encounters with visitors who had experienced a Germany very different from the cheery, sun-dappled realm he walked through each morning. One such visitor was Edgar A. Mowrer, at the time the most famous correspondent in Berlin and the center of a maelstrom of controversy. In addition to reporting for the Chicago Daily News Chicago Daily News, Mowrer had written a best-selling book, Germany Puts the Clock Back Germany Puts the Clock Back, which had angered n.a.z.i officials to the point where Mowrer's friends believed he faced mortal danger. Hitler's government wanted him out of the country. Mowrer wanted to stay and came to Dodd to ask him to intercede.

Mowrer had long been a target of n.a.z.i ire. In his dispatches from Germany he had managed to cut below the patina of normalcy to capture events that challenged belief, and he used novel reporting techniques to do it. One of his foremost sources of information was his doctor, a Jew who was the son of the grand rabbi of Berlin. Every two weeks or so Mowrer would make an appointment to see him, ostensibly for a persistent throat complaint. Each time the doctor would give him a typed report of the latest n.a.z.i excesses, a method that worked until the doctor came to suspect that Mowrer was being followed. The two arranged a new rendezvous point: every Wednesday at 11:45 a.m. they met in the public restroom underneath Potsdamer Platz. They stood at adjacent urinals. The doctor would drop the latest report, and Mowrer would pick it up.

Putzi Hanfstaengl tried to undermine Mowrer's credibility by spreading a false rumor that the reason his reports were so aggressively critical was that he was a "secret" Jew. In fact, the same thought had occurred to Martha. "I was inclined to think him Jewish," she wrote; she "considered his animus to be prompted only by his racial self-consciousness."

Mowrer was appalled at the failure of the outside world to grasp what was really happening in Germany. He found that even his own brother had come to doubt the truth of his reports.

Mowrer invited Dodd to dinner at his apartment overlooking the Tiergarten and tried to clue him in to certain hidden realities. "To no purpose," Mowrer wrote. "He knew better." Even the periodic a.s.saults against Americans appeared not to have moved the amba.s.sador, Mowrer recalled: "Dodd announced he had no wish to mix in Germany's affairs."

Dodd for his part a.s.sessed Mowrer as being "almost as vehement, in his way, as the n.a.z.is."

Threats against Mowrer increased. Within the n.a.z.i hierarchy there was talk of inflicting physical harm on the correspondent. Gestapo chief Rudolf Diels felt compelled to warn the U.S. emba.s.sy that Hitler became enraged whenever Mowrer's name was mentioned. Diels worried that some fanatic might kill Mowrer or otherwise "eliminate him from the picture," and claimed to have a.s.signed certain Gestapo men "of responsibility" to stand discreet watch over the correspondent and his family.

When Mowrer's boss, Frank Knox, owner of the Chicago Daily News Chicago Daily News, learned of these threats, he resolved to transfer Mowrer out of Berlin. He offered him the paper's bureau in Tokyo. Mowrer accepted, grudgingly, aware that sooner or later he would be expelled from Germany, but he insisted on staying until October, partly just to demonstrate that he would not bow to intimidation, but mainly because he wanted to cover the annual n.a.z.i Party spectacle in Nuremberg set to begin September 1. This next rally, the "Party Day of Victory," promised to be the biggest yet.

The n.a.z.is wanted him gone immediately. Storm Troopers appeared outside his office. They followed his friends and made threats against his bureau staff. In Washington, Germany's amba.s.sador to the United States notified the State Department that because of the "people's righteous indignation" the government could no longer hope to keep Mowrer free from harm.

At this point even his fellow correspondents became concerned. H. R. Knickerbocker and another reporter went to see Consul General Messersmith to ask him to persuade Mowrer to leave. Messersmith was reluctant. He knew Mowrer well and respected his courage in facing down n.a.z.i threats. He feared that Mowrer might view his intercession as a betrayal. Nonetheless, he agreed to try.

It was "one of the most difficult conversations I ever had," Messersmith wrote later. "When he saw that I was joining his other friends in trying to persuade him to leave, tears came into his eyes and he looked at me reproachfully." Nonetheless, Messersmith felt it was his duty to convince Mowrer to leave.

Mowrer gave up "with a gesture of despair" and left Messersmith's office.

Now Mowrer took his case directly to Amba.s.sador Dodd, but Dodd too believed he should leave, not just for his safety but because his reporting imparted an extra layer of strain to what was already a very challenging diplomatic environment.

Dodd told him, "If you were not being moved by your paper anyway, I would go to the mat on this issue.... Won't you do this to avoid complications?"

Mowrer gave in. He agreed to leave on September 1, the first full day of the Nuremberg rally he so wanted to cover.

Martha wrote later that Mowrer "never quite forgave my father for this advice."

ANOTHER OF DODD'S EARLY visitors was, as Dodd wrote, "perhaps the foremost chemist in Germany," but he did not look it. He was smallish in size and egg bald, with a narrow gray mustache above full lips. His complexion was sallow, his air that of a much older man. visitors was, as Dodd wrote, "perhaps the foremost chemist in Germany," but he did not look it. He was smallish in size and egg bald, with a narrow gray mustache above full lips. His complexion was sallow, his air that of a much older man.

He was Fritz Haber. To any German the name was well known and revered, or had been until the advent of Hitler. Until recently, Haber had been director of the famed Kaiser Wilhelm Inst.i.tute for Physical Chemistry. He was a war hero and a n.o.bel laureate. Hoping to break the stalemate in the trenches during the Great War, Haber had invented poison chlorine gas. He had devised what became known as Haber's rule, a formula, C t = k, elegant in its lethality: a low exposure to gas over a long period will have the same result as a high exposure over a short period. He also invented a means to distribute his poison gas at the front and was himself present in 1915 for its first use against French forces at Ypres. On a personal level, that day at Ypres cost him dearly. His wife of thirty-two years, Clara, had long condemned his work as inhumane and immoral and demanded he stop, but to such concerns he gave a stock reply: death was death, no matter the cause. Nine days after the gas attack at Ypres, she committed suicide. Despite international outcry over his poison-gas research, Haber was awarded the 1918 n.o.bel Prize for chemistry for discovering a means of mining nitrogen from air and thus allowing the manufacture of plentiful, cheap fertilizer-and, of course, gunpowder.

Despite a prewar conversion to Protestantism, Haber was cla.s.sified under the new n.a.z.i laws as non-Aryan, but an exception granted to Jewish war veterans allowed him to remain director of the inst.i.tute. Many Jewish scientists on his staff did not qualify for the exemption, however, and on April 21, 1933, Haber was ordered to dismiss them. He fought the decision but found few allies. Even his friend Max Planck offered tepid consolation. "In this profound dejection," Planck wrote, "my sole solace is that we live in a time of catastrophe such as attends every revolution, and that we must endure much of what happens as a phenomenon of nature, without agonizing over whether things could have turned out differently."

Haber didn't see it that way. Rather than preside over the dismissal of his friends and colleagues, he resigned.

Now-Friday, July 28, 1933-with few choices remaining, he came to Dodd's office for help, bearing a letter from Henry Morgenthau Jr., head of Roosevelt's Federal Farm Board (and future Treasury secretary). Morgenthau was Jewish and an advocate for Jewish refugees.

As Haber told his story he "trembled from head to foot," Dodd wrote in his diary, calling Haber's account "the saddest story of Jewish persecution I have yet heard." Haber was sixty-five years old, with a failing heart, and was now being denied the pension that had been guaranteed him under the laws of the Weimar Republic, which immediately preceded Hitler's Third Reich. "He wished to know the possibilities in America for emigrants with distinguished records here in science," Dodd wrote. "I could only say that the law allowed none now, the quota being filled." Dodd promised to write to the Labor Department, which administered immigration quotas, to ask "if any favorable ruling might be made for such people."

They shook hands. Haber warned Dodd to be careful about talking of his case to others, "as the consequences might be bad." And then Haber left, a small gray chemist who once had been one of Germany's most important scientific a.s.sets.

"Poor old man," Dodd recalled thinking-then caught himself, for Haber was in fact only one year older than he was. "Such treatment," Dodd wrote in his diary, "can only bring evil to the government which practices such terrible cruelty."

Dodd discovered, too late, that what he had told Haber was simply incorrect. The next week, on August 5, Dodd wrote to Isador Lubin, chief of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: "You know the quota is already full and you probably realize that a large number of very excellent people would like to migrate to the United States, even though they have to sacrifice their property in doing so." In light of this, Dodd wanted to know whether the Labor Department had discovered any means through which "the most deserving of these people can be admitted."

Lubin forwarded Dodd's letter to Colonel D. W. MacCormack, commissioner of immigration and naturalization, who on August 23 wrote back to Lubin and told him, "The Amba.s.sador appears to have been misinformed in this connection." In fact only a small fraction of the visas allotted under the German quota had been issued, and the fault, MacCormack made clear, lay with the State Department and Foreign Service, and their enthusiastic enforcement of the clause that barred entry to people "likely to become a public charge." Nothing in Dodd's papers explains how he came to believe the quota was full.

All this came too late for Haber. He left for England to teach at Cambridge University, a seemingly happy resolution, but he found himself adrift in an alien culture, torn from his past, and suffering the effects of an inhospitable climate. Within six months of leaving Dodd's office, during a convalescence in Switzerland, he suffered a fatal heart attack, his pa.s.sing unlamented in the new Germany. Within a decade, however, the Third Reich would find a new use for Haber's rule, and for an insecticide that Haber had invented at his inst.i.tute, composed in part of cyanide gas and typically deployed to fumigate structures used for the storage of grain. At first called Zyklon A, it would be transformed by German chemists into a more lethal variant: Zyklon B.

DESPITE THIS ENCOUNTER, Dodd remained convinced that the government was growing more moderate and that n.a.z.i mistreatment of Jews was on the wane. He said as much in a letter to Rabbi Wise of the American Jewish Congress, whom he had met at the Century Club in New York and who had been a fellow pa.s.senger on his ship to Germany.

Rabbi Wise was startled. In a July 28 reply from Geneva, he wrote, "How I wish I could share your optimism! I must, however, tell you that everything, every word from scores of refugees in London and Paris within the last two weeks leads me to feel that far from there having been, as you believe, an improvement, things are becoming graver and more oppressive for German Jews from day to day. I am certain that my impression would be borne out by the men whom you met at the little conference at the Century Club." He was reminding Dodd of the meeting in New York that had been attended by Wise, Felix Warburg, and other Jewish leaders.

Privately, in a letter to his daughter, Wise wrote that Dodd "is being lied to."

Dodd stood by his view. In a response to Wise's letter, Dodd countered that "the many sources of information open to the office here seem to me to indicate a desire to ease up on the Jewish problem. Of course, many incidents of very disagreeable character continue to be reported. These I think are the hangovers from the earlier agitation. While I am in no sense disposed to excuse or apologize for such conditions, I am quite convinced that the leading element in the Government inclines to a milder policy as soon as possible."

He added, "Of course you know our Government cannot intervene in such domestic matters. All one can do is to present the American point of view and stress the unhappy consequences of such a policy as has been pursued." He told Wise he opposed open protest. "It is my judgment...that the greatest influence we can exercise on behalf of a more kindly and humane policy is to be applied unofficially and through private conversations with men who already begin to see the risks involved."

Wise was so concerned about Dodd's apparent failure to grasp what was really occurring that he offered to come to Berlin and, as he told his own daughter, Justine, "tell him the truth which he would not otherwise hear." At the time, Wise was traveling in Switzerland. From Zurich he "again begged Dodd by telephone to make possible my air flight to Berlin."

Dodd refused. Wise was too well known in Germany and too widely hated. His photograph had appeared in the Volkischer Beobachter Volkischer Beobachter and and Der Sturmer Der Sturmer too often. As Wise recounted in a memoir, Dodd feared "I might be recognized, particularly because of my unmistakable pa.s.sport, and give rise to an 'unpleasant incident' at a landing place such as Nuremberg." The amba.s.sador was unswayed by Wise's suggestion that an emba.s.sy official meet him at the airport and keep him in sight for the duration of his trip. too often. As Wise recounted in a memoir, Dodd feared "I might be recognized, particularly because of my unmistakable pa.s.sport, and give rise to an 'unpleasant incident' at a landing place such as Nuremberg." The amba.s.sador was unswayed by Wise's suggestion that an emba.s.sy official meet him at the airport and keep him in sight for the duration of his trip.

While in Switzerland, Wise attended the World Jewish Conference in Geneva, where he introduced a resolution that called for a world boycott of German commerce. The resolution pa.s.sed.

WISE WOULD HAVE BEEN heartened to learn that Consul General Messersmith held a much darker view of events than Dodd. While Messersmith agreed that incidents of outright violence against Jews had fallen off sharply, he saw that these had been superseded by a form of persecution that was far more insidious and pervasive. In a dispatch to the State Department, he wrote, "Briefly it may be said that the situation of the Jews in every respect except that of personal safety, is constantly growing more difficult and that the restrictions in effect are becoming daily more effective in practice and that new restrictions are constantly appearing." heartened to learn that Consul General Messersmith held a much darker view of events than Dodd. While Messersmith agreed that incidents of outright violence against Jews had fallen off sharply, he saw that these had been superseded by a form of persecution that was far more insidious and pervasive. In a dispatch to the State Department, he wrote, "Briefly it may be said that the situation of the Jews in every respect except that of personal safety, is constantly growing more difficult and that the restrictions in effect are becoming daily more effective in practice and that new restrictions are constantly appearing."

He cited several new developments. Jewish dentists were now barred from taking care of patients under Germany's social insurance system, an echo of what had happened to Jewish doctors earlier in the year. A new "German fashion office" had just excluded Jewish dressmakers from partic.i.p.ating in an upcoming fashion show. Jews and anyone who had even the appearance of a non-Aryan were forbidden to become policemen. And Jews, Messersmith reported, were now officially banned from the bathing beach at Wannsee.

Even more systemic persecution was on the way, Messersmith wrote. He had learned that a draft existed of a new law that would effectively deprive Jews of their citizenship and all civil rights. Germany's Jews, he wrote, "look upon this proposed law as the most serious moral blow which could be delivered to them. They have and are being deprived of practically all means of making a livelihood and understand that the new citizenship law is to practically deprive them of all civil rights."

The only reason it hadn't become law already, Messersmith had learned, was that for the moment the men behind it feared "the unfavorable public sentiment it would arouse abroad." The draft had been circulating for nine weeks, and this prompted Messersmith to end his dispatch with a bit of wishful thinking. "The fact that the law has been under consideration for such a long time," he wrote, "may be an indication that in its final form it will be less radical than that still contemplated."

DODD REITERATED HIS COMMITMENT to objectivity and understanding in an August 12 letter to Roosevelt, in which he wrote that while he did not approve of Germany's treatment of Jews or Hitler's drive to restore the country's military power, "fundamentally, I believe a people has a right to govern itself and that other peoples must exercise patience even when cruelties and injustices are done. Give men a chance to try their schemes." to objectivity and understanding in an August 12 letter to Roosevelt, in which he wrote that while he did not approve of Germany's treatment of Jews or Hitler's drive to restore the country's military power, "fundamentally, I believe a people has a right to govern itself and that other peoples must exercise patience even when cruelties and injustices are done. Give men a chance to try their schemes."

CHAPTER 10.

Tiergartenstra.s.se 27a Martha and her mother set out to find the family a house to lease, so that they could move out of the Esplanade-escape its opulence, in Dodd's view-and lead a more settled life. Bill Jr., meanwhile, enrolled in a doctoral program at the University of Berlin. To improve his German as speedily as possible, he arranged to live during the school week with the family of a professor.

The matter of housing the U.S. amba.s.sador in Berlin had long been an embarra.s.sment. Some years earlier the State Department had acquired and renovated a large and lavish building, the Blucher Palace, on Pariser Platz behind the Brandenburg Gate, to provide an amba.s.sador's residence and consolidate in one location all the other diplomatic and consular offices spread throughout the city, and also to raise America's physical presence nearer to that of Britain and France, whose emba.s.sies had long been ensconced in majestic palaces on the plaza. However, just before Dodd's predecessor, Frederic Sackett, was to move in, fire had gutted the building. It had stood as a forlorn wreck ever since, forcing Sackett and now Dodd to find alternative lodging. On a personal level, Dodd was not unhappy about this. Though he reviled the waste of all the money thus far expended on the palace-the government, he wrote, had paid an "exorbitant" price for the building, but "you know it was in 1928 or 1929, when everybody was crazy"-he liked the idea of having a home outside the emba.s.sy itself. "Personally, I would rather have my residence a half-hour's walk away than to have it in the Palais," he wrote. He acknowledged that having a building large enough to house junior officials would be a good thing, "but any of us who have to see people would find that the residence alongside of our offices would deprive us practically of all privacy-which is sometimes very essential."

Martha and her mother toured greater Berlin's lovely residential neighborhoods and discovered the city to be full of parks and gardens, with planters and flowers seemingly on every balcony. In the farthest districts they saw what appeared to be tiny farms, possibly just the thing for Martha's father. They encountered squads of uniformed young people happily marching and singing, and more threatening formations of Storm Troopers with men of all sizes in ill-fitting uniforms, the centerpiece of which was a brown shirt of spectacularly unflattering cut. More rarely they spotted the leaner, better-tailored men of the SS, in night black accented with red, like some species of oversized blackbird.

The Dodds found many properties to choose from, though at first they failed to ask themselves why so many grand old mansions were available for lease so fully and luxuriously furnished, with ornate tables and chairs, gleaming pianos, and rare vases, maps, and books still in place. One area they particularly liked was the district immediately south of the Tiergarten along Dodd's route to work, where they found gardens, plentiful shade, a quiet atmosphere, and an array of handsome houses. A property in the district had become available, which they learned of through the emba.s.sy's military attache, who had been told of its availability directly by the owner, Alfred Panofsky, the wealthy Jewish proprietor of a private bank and one of the many Jews-some sixteen thousand, or about 9 percent of Berlin's Jews-who lived within the district. Even though Jews were being evicted from their jobs throughout Germany, Panofsky's bank continued in operation and, surprisingly, with official indulgence.

Panofsky promised the rent would be very reasonable. Dodd, by now ruing but still adhering to his vow to live within his salary, was interested and toward the end of July went to take a look.

THE HOUSE, AT TIERGARTENSTRa.s.sE 27a, was a four-story mansion of stone that had been built for Ferdinand Warburg of the famed Warburg dynasty. The park was across the street. Panofsky and his mother showed the Dodds the property, and now Dodd learned that in fact Panofsky was not offering the whole house, only the first three floors. The banker and his mother planned to occupy the top floor and reserved as well the use of the mansion's electric elevator. 27a, was a four-story mansion of stone that had been built for Ferdinand Warburg of the famed Warburg dynasty. The park was across the street. Panofsky and his mother showed the Dodds the property, and now Dodd learned that in fact Panofsky was not offering the whole house, only the first three floors. The banker and his mother planned to occupy the top floor and reserved as well the use of the mansion's electric elevator.

Panofsky was sufficiently wealthy that he did not need the income from the lease, but he had seen enough since Hitler's appointment as chancellor to know that no Jew, no matter how prominent, was safe from n.a.z.i persecution. He offered 27a to the new amba.s.sador with the express intention of gaining for himself and his mother an enhanced level of physical protection, calculating that surely even the Storm Troopers would not risk the international outcry likely to arise from an attack on the house shared by the American amba.s.sador. The Dodds, for their part, would gain all the amenities of a freestanding house, yet for a fraction of the cost, in a structure whose street presence was sufficiently impressive to communicate American power and prestige and whose interior s.p.a.ces were grand enough to allow the entertainment of government and diplomatic guests without embarra.s.sment. In a letter to President Roosevelt, Dodd exulted, "We have one of the best residences in Berlin at $150 a month-due to the fact the owner is a wealthy Jew, most willing to let us have it."

Panofsky and Dodd signed a one-page "gentleman's agreement," though Dodd still had a few qualms about the place. While he loved the quiet, the trees, the garden, and the prospect of continuing to walk to work each morning, he judged the house too opulent and called it, derisively, "our new mansion."

A plaque bearing the image of an American eagle was affixed to the iron gate at the entrance to the property, and on Sat.u.r.day, August 5, 1933, Dodd and his family left the Esplanade behind and moved into their new home.

Dodd conceded later that if he had known Panofsky's actual intentions for the use of the fourth floor, beyond simply lodging himself and his mother, he never would have agreed to the lease.

TREES AND GARDENS FILLED the yard, which was surrounded with a high iron fence set in a knee-high wall of brick. Anyone arriving on foot reached the front entrance through doorlike gates built of vertical bars of iron; by car, through a tall master gate topped with an elaborate ironwork arch with a translucent orb at its center. The front doorway of the house was invariably in shadow and formed a black rectangle at the base of a rounded, towerlike facade that rose the full height of the building. The mansion's most peculiar architectural feature was an imposing protrusion about one and a half stories tall that jutted from the front of the house to form a porte cochere over the entry driveway and served as a gallery for the display of paintings. the yard, which was surrounded with a high iron fence set in a knee-high wall of brick. Anyone arriving on foot reached the front entrance through doorlike gates built of vertical bars of iron; by car, through a tall master gate topped with an elaborate ironwork arch with a translucent orb at its center. The front doorway of the house was invariably in shadow and formed a black rectangle at the base of a rounded, towerlike facade that rose the full height of the building. The mansion's most peculiar architectural feature was an imposing protrusion about one and a half stories tall that jutted from the front of the house to form a porte cochere over the entry driveway and served as a gallery for the display of paintings.

The main entrance and foyer were on the ground floor, at the rear of which lay the operational soul of the house-servants' quarters, laundry, ice storage, various supply rooms and cupboards, a pantry, and a huge kitchen, which Martha described as being "twice the size of an average New York apartment." Upon entering the house, the Dodds walked first into a large vestibule flanked on both sides by cloakrooms and then up an elaborate staircase to the main floor.

It was here that the true drama of the house became evident. At the front, behind the curved facade, was a ballroom with an oval dance floor of gleaming wood and a piano covered in rich, fringed fabric, its bench upholstered and gilded. Here, on the piano, the Dodds placed an elaborate vase full of tall flowers and, beside this, a framed photographic portrait of Martha in which she looked exceptionally beautiful and overtly s.e.xual, an odd choice, perhaps, for the ballroom of an amba.s.sadorial residence. One reception room had walls covered in dark green damask, another, pink satin. A vast dining room had walls sheathed in red tapestry.

The Dodds' bedroom was on the third floor. (Panofsky and his mother were to live on the floor above this, the attic floor.) The master bathroom was immense, so elaborate and overdone as to be comical, at least in Martha's view. Its floors and walls were "entirely done in gold and colored mosaics." A large tub stood on a raised platform, like something on display in a museum. "For weeks," Martha wrote, "I roared with laughter whenever I saw the bathroom and occasionally as a lark would take my friends up to see it, when my father was away."

Though the house still struck Dodd as overly luxurious, even he had to concede that its ballroom and reception rooms would come in handy for diplomatic functions, some of which he knew-and dreaded-would require the invitation of scores of guests so as not to offend an overlooked amba.s.sador. And he loved the Wintergarten Wintergarten at the south end of the main floor, a gla.s.sed-in chamber that opened onto a tiled terrace overlooking the garden. Inside he would lie reading in a recliner; on fine days he sat outside in a cane chair, a book in his lap, as he caught the southern sun. at the south end of the main floor, a gla.s.sed-in chamber that opened onto a tiled terrace overlooking the garden. Inside he would lie reading in a recliner; on fine days he sat outside in a cane chair, a book in his lap, as he caught the southern sun.

The family's overall favorite room was the library, which offered the prospect of cozy winter nights beside a fire. It was walled with dark, gleaming wood and red damask, and had a great old fireplace whose black-enameled mantel was carved with forests and human figures. The shelves were full of books, many of which Dodd judged to be ancient and valuable. At certain times of day the room was bathed in colored light cast from stained gla.s.s set high in one wall. A gla.s.s-topped table displayed valuable ma.n.u.scripts and letters left there by Panofsky. Martha especially liked the library's roomy brown leather sofa, soon to become an a.s.set in her romantic life. The size of the house, the remoteness of its bedrooms, the quiet of its fabric-sheathed walls-these too would prove valuable, as would her parents' habit of retiring early despite the prevailing Berlin custom of staying up to all hours.

On that Sat.u.r.day in August when the Dodds moved in, the Panofskys graciously placed fresh flowers throughout the house, prompting Dodd to write a thank-you note. "We are convinced that, thanks to your kind efforts and thoughtfulness, we shall be very happy in your lovely house."

Among the diplomatic community, the house at Tiergartenstra.s.se 27a quickly became known as a haven where people could speak their minds without fear. "I love going there because of Dodd's brilliant mind, his sharp gift of observation and trenchantly sarcastic tongue," wrote Bella Fromm, the society columnist. "I like it also because there is no rigid ceremony as observed in other diplomatic houses." One regular visitor was Prince Louis Ferdinand, who in a memoir described the house as his "second home." He often joined the Dodds for dinner. "When the servants were out of sight we opened our hearts," he wrote. Sometimes the prince's candor was too much even for Amba.s.sador Dodd, who warned him, "If you don't try to be more careful with your talk, Prince Louis, they will hang you one of these days. I'll come to your funeral all right, but that won't do you much good, I am afraid."

As the family settled in, Martha and her father fell into an easy camaraderie. They traded jokes and wry observations. "We love each other," she wrote in a letter to Thornton Wilder, "and I am told state secrets. We laugh at the n.a.z.is and ask our sweet butler if he has Jewish blood." The butler, named Fritz-"short, blond, obsequious, efficient"-had worked for Dodd's predecessor. "We talk mostly politics at table," she continued. "Father reads chapters of his Old South Old South to the guests. They almost perish of chagrin and mystification." to the guests. They almost perish of chagrin and mystification."

She noted that her mother-whom she called "Her Excellency"-was in good health "but a bit nervous [and] rather enjoying it all." Her father, she wrote, was "flourishing incredibly," and seemed "slightly pro-German." She added, "We sort of don't like the Jews anyway."

Carl Sandburg sent her a maundering letter of greeting, typed on two very thin sheets of paper, with s.p.a.ces instead of punctuation marks: "Now the hegira begins the wanderjahre the track over the sea and the zig-zag over the continent and the center and the home in berlin where are many ragged arithmetics and torn testaments thru the doors will pa.s.s all the garbs and tongues and tales of europe the jews the communists the atheists the non-aryans the proscribed will not always come as such but they will come in guises disguises disgeeses...some will arrive with strange songs and a few with lines we have known and loved correspondents casual and permanent international spies spindrift beach combers aviators heroes..."

The Dodds soon learned they had a prominent and much-feared neighbor farther along Tiergartenstra.s.se, on a side street called Standartenstra.s.se: Captain Rohm himself, commander of the Storm Troopers. Every morning he could be seen riding a large black horse in the Tiergarten. Another nearby building, a lovely two-story mansion that housed Hitler's personal chancellery, would soon become the home of a n.a.z.i program to euthanize people with severe mental or physical disabilities, code-named Aktion (Action) T-4, for the address, Tiergartenstra.s.se 4.

To the horror of Counselor Gordon, Amba.s.sador Dodd continued his practice of walking to work, alone, unguarded, in his plain business suits.

NOW, SUNDAY, AUGUST 13, 1933, with Hindenburg still convalescing on his estate, Dodd still an unofficial amba.s.sador, and the matter of establishing a new household at last resolved, the family, accompanied by Martha's new friend, correspondent Quentin Reynolds, set off to see a little of Germany. They traveled first by car-the Dodds' Chevrolet-but planned to separate at Leipzig, about ninety miles south of Berlin, where Dodd and his wife planned to linger awhile and visit landmarks from his days at Leipzig University. 13, 1933, with Hindenburg still convalescing on his estate, Dodd still an unofficial amba.s.sador, and the matter of establishing a new household at last resolved, the family, accompanied by Martha's new friend, correspondent Quentin Reynolds, set off to see a little of Germany. They traveled first by car-the Dodds' Chevrolet-but planned to separate at Leipzig, about ninety miles south of Berlin, where Dodd and his wife planned to linger awhile and visit landmarks from his days at Leipzig University.

Martha, Bill Jr., and Reynolds continued south, with the aim of eventually reaching Austria. Theirs would prove to be a journey laden with incident that would provide the first challenge to Martha's rosy view of the new Germany.

PART III.

Lucifer in the Garden

Rudolf Diels ( (photo credit p3.1)