In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

Unless you're my friend Katie and you're writing a PhD on German history, you probably don't think that much about Germany in the '30s. I mean, we all vaguely understand that that was when Hitler really came into power, even if America didn't see his rise as a problem until...well, until he threatened our oil supply in the Middle East, actually, but there's probably a better book about that particular issue.

The shocking thing about this book is that it chronicles year after year of Americans--not just everyday Americans, but Americans up to and including the President--fighting to remain isolationist even in the face of what is, in retrospect, an enormous global threat.

I was sort of reading this book at the same time as a new, updated history of WWII, and I was constantly asking myself, did we really not see it or did we just not give a shit?

In truth, I think it was more the latter than the former. As Larson's book describes it, diplomats from everywhere imaginable were partying the nights away in Berlin as the situation became more and more desperate for the country's Jewish population. William E. Dodd, the ambassador in this book, started out very naive and enamored of Germany and the German government but slowly came to see the terror that was developing.

Even more interesting, though, is his daughter Martha, who sleeps with almost everyone and has long-term affairs with Rudolph Diels, the first chief of Hitler's Gestapo, and, later, a KGB agent. I pause upon writing that. Yes. She had an affair with the first chief of Hitler's Gestapo. How is that possible, you ask? What can I say? Perhaps she truly didn't get it. Perhaps the word "Gestapo" did not have the same chilling ring it does today. Perhaps she couldn't resist a man in a uniform? An important lesson nonetheless and one we could all take to heart: one day you're sleeping with the chief of the Gestapo (no biggie) and the next YOU'RE SLEEPING WITH THE CHIEF OF THE GESTAPO!!! Oh, shit.