In the Garden of Beasts

“You cannot expect world opinion of your conduct to moderate so long as eminent leaders like Hitler and Goebbels announce from platforms, as in Nuremberg, that all Jews must be wiped off the earth.”
    Dodd rose to leave. He turned to Neurath. “Shall we have a war?” he asked.
    Again Neurath flushed: “Never!”
    At the door, Dodd said, “You must realize that Germany would be ruined by another war.”
    Dodd left the building, “a little concerned that I had been so frank and critical.”
    THE VERY NEXT DAY , the American consul in Stuttgart, Germany, sent a “strictly confidential” communiqué to Berlin in which he reported that the Mauser Company, in his jurisdiction, had sharply increased its production of arms. The consul wrote, “No doubt can be entertained any longer that large scale preparation for a renewal of aggression against other countries is being planned in Germany.”
    Soon afterward the same consul reported that German police had begun close surveillance of highways, routinely stopping travelers and subjecting them, their cars, and their baggage to detailed search.
    On one notorious occasion the government ordered a nationwide halt of all traffic between noon and 12:40 so that squads of police could search all trains, trucks, and cars then in transit. The official explanation, quoted by German newspapers, was that the police were hunting for weapons, foreign propaganda, and evidence of communist resistance. Cynical Berliners embraced a different theory then making the rounds: that what the police really hoped to find, and confiscate, were copies of Swiss and Austrian newspapers carrying allegations that Hitler himself might have Jewish ancestry.

CHAPTER 16
A Secret Request
    T he attacks against Americans, his protests, the unpredictability of Hitler and his deputies, and the need to tread with so much delicacy in the face of official behavior that anywhere else might draw time in prison—all of it wore Dodd down. He was plagued by headaches and stomach troubles. In a letter to a friend he described his ambassadorship as “this disagreeable and difficult business.”
    On top of it all came the quotidian troubles that even ambassadors had to cope with.
    In mid-September the Dodds became aware of a good deal of noise coming from the fourth floor of their house on Tiergartenstrasse, which supposedly was occupied only by Panofsky and his mother. With no advance notice to Dodd, a team of carpenters arrived and, starting at seven o’clock each day, began hammering and sawing and otherwise raising a clamor, and continued doing so for two weeks. On September 18, Panofsky wrote a brief note to Dodd: “Herewith I am informing you that at the beginning of the coming month my wife and my children will return from their stay in the countryside back to Berlin. I am convinced that the comfort of your excellency and of Mrs. Dodd will not be impaired, as it is my aspiration to make your stay in my house as comfortable as possible.”
    Panofsky moved his wife and children into the fourth floor, along with several servants.
    Dodd was shocked. He composed a letter to Panofsky, which he then edited heavily, crossing out and modifying every other line, clearly aware that this was more than a routine landlord-tenantmatter. Panofsky was bringing his family back to Berlin because Dodd’s presence ensured their safety.Dodd’s first draft hinted that he might now have to move his own family and chided Panofsky for not having disclosed his plans in July. Had he done so, Dodd wrote, “we should not [have] been in such an embarrassing position.”
    Dodd’s final draft was softer. “We are very happy indeed to hear that you are reunited with your family,” he wrote, in German. “Our only concern would be that your children won’t be able to use their own home as freely as they would like. We bought our house in Chicago so that our children could experience the advantages of the outdoors. It would sadden me to have the feeling that we might hinder this entitled freedom and bodily movement of your children. If we had known about your plans in July, we would not have been in this tight spot right now.”
    The Dodds, like abused tenants everywhere, resolved at first to be patient and to hope that the new din of children and servants would subside.
    It did not. The clatter of comings and goings and the chance appearances of small children caused awkward moments, especially when the Dodds entertained diplomats