In the Garden of Beasts

well-being. But Dodd, he knew, was on leave. Diels asked Martha to speak with Messersmith, who by now had returned from his own leave, to see what he could do.
    Despite Martha’s inclination to view Diels as overly dramatic, this time she did believe he faced mortal peril. She went to see Messersmith at the consulate.
    She was “obviously in a greatly perturbed situation,” Messersmith recalled. She broke down in tears and told him that Diels was to be arrested that day “and that it was almost certain that he would be executed.”
    She composed herself, then pleaded with Messersmith to meet with Göring at once. She tried flattery, calling Messersmith the only man who could intercede “without being in danger of his own life.”
    Messersmith was unmoved. By now he had grown to dislike Martha. He found her behavior—her various love affairs—repugnant. Givenher presumed relationship with Diels, Messersmith was not surprised that she had come to his office in “this hysterical state.” He told her he could do nothing “and after a great deal of difficulty was able to get her out of my office.”
    After she left, however, Messersmith began to reconsider. “I began thinking about the matter and realized that she was correct in saying one thing, and that is that Diels after all was one of the best in the regime, as was Göring and that in case anything happened to Diels and Himmler came in, it would weaken the position of Göring and of the more reasonable element in the party.” If Himmler ran the Gestapo, Messersmith believed, he and Dodd would have far more difficulty resolving future attacks against Americans, “for Himmler was known to be even more cold-blooded and ruthless than Dr. Diels.”
    Messersmith was scheduled to attend a luncheon that afternoon at the Herrenklub, a men’s club for conservatives, hosted by two prominent Reichswehr generals, but now, recognizing that a talk with Göring was far more important, Messersmith saw that he might have to cancel. He called Göring’s office to arrange the meeting and learned that Göring had just left for a luncheon of his own—at the Herrenklub. Messersmith hadn’t known until then that Göring was to be the guest of honor at the generals’ lunch.
    He realized two things: first, that the task of speaking with Göring had suddenly become much simpler, and second, that the luncheon was a landmark: “It was the first time since the Nazis came to power that the highest ranking officers of the German Army … were going to sit down to a table with Göring or any high ranking member of the Nazi regime.” It struck him that the lunch might signal that the army and government were closing ranks against Captain Röhm and his Storm Troopers. If so, it was an ominous sign, for Röhm was not likely to jettison his ambitions without a fight.
    MESSERSMITH ARRIVED AT THE CLUB shortly after noon and found Göring conversing with the generals. Göring put his arm around Messersmith’s shoulders and told the others, “Gentlemen, this is a man who doesn’t like me at all, a man who doesn’t think very much of me, but he is a good friend of our country.”
    Messersmith waited for an appropriate moment to take Göring aside. “I told him in very few words that a person in whom I had absolute confidence had called on me that morning and told me that Himmler was bent on getting rid of Diels during the course of the day and that Diels was actually to be bumped off.”
    Göring thanked him for the information. The two rejoined the other guests, but a few moments later Göring offered his regrets and left.
    What happened next—what threats were made, what compromises struck, whether Hitler himself intervened—isn’t clear, but by five o’clock that afternoon, April 1, 1934, Messersmith learned that Diels had been named
Regierungspräsident
, or regional commissioner, of Cologne and that the Gestapo would now be headed by Himmler.
    Diels was saved, but Göring had suffered a significant defeat. He had acted not for the sake of past friendship but out of anger at the prospect of Himmler trying to arrest Diels in his own realm. Himmler, however, had won the greatest prize, the last and most important component of his secret-police empire. “It was,” Messersmith wrote, “the first setback that Göring had had since the beginning of the Nazi regime.”
    A photograph of the moment when Himmler officially took control of the Gestapo, at a ceremony on April 20,