In the Garden of Beasts

CHAPTER 27

O Tannenbaum

It was almost Christmas. The winter sun, when it shone at all, climbed only partway into the southern sky and cast evening shadows at midday. Frigid winds came in off the plains. “Berlin is a skeleton which aches in the cold,” wrote Christopher Isherwood, describing the winters he experienced during his tenure in 1930s Berlin: “It is my own skeleton aching. I feel in my bones the sharp ache of the frost in the girders of the overhead railway, in the ironwork of balconies, in bridges, tramlines, lamp-standards, latrines. The iron throbs and shrinks, the stone and the bricks ache dully, the plaster is numb.”

The gloom was leavened somewhat by the play of lights on wet streets—sidewalk lamps, storefronts, headlights, the warmly lit interiors of countless streetcars—and by the city’s habitual embrace of Christmas. Candles appeared in every window and large trees lit with electric lights graced squares and parks and the busiest street corners, reflecting a passion for the season that even the Storm Troopers could not suppress and in fact used to their financial advantage. The SA monopolized the sale of Christmas trees, selling them from rail yards, ostensibly for the benefit of the Winterhilfe—literally, Winter Help—the SA’s charity for the poor and jobless, widely believed by cynical Berliners to fund the Storm Troopers’ parties and banquets, which had become legendary for their opulence, their debauchery, and the volume of champagne consumed. Troopers went door-to-door carrying red donation boxes. Donors received little badges to pin on their clothing to show they had given money, and they made sure to wear them, thereby putting oblique pressure on those brave or foolhardy souls who failed to contribute.

Another American ran afoul of the government, due to a false denunciation by “persons who had a grudge against him,” according to a consulate report. It was the kind of moment that decades hence would become a repeated motif in films about the Nazi era.

At about four thirty in the morning on Tuesday, December 12, 1933, an American citizen named Erwin Wollstein stood on a train platform in Breslau waiting for a train to Oppeln in Upper Silesia, where he planned to conduct some business. He was leaving so early because he hoped to return later that same day. In Breslau he shared an apartment with his father, who was a German citizen.

Two men in suits approached and called him by name. They identified themselves as officers of the Gestapo and asked him to accompany them to a police post located in the train station.

“I was ordered to remove my overcoat, coat, shoes, spats, collar and necktie,” Wollstein wrote in an affidavit. The agents then searched him and his belongings. This took nearly half an hour. They found his passport and quizzed him on his citizenship. He confirmed that he was an American citizen and asked that they notify the American consulate in Breslau of his arrest.

The agents then took him by car to the Breslau Central Police Station, where he was placed in a cell. He was given “a frugal breakfast.” He remained in his cell for the next nine hours. In the meantime, his father was arrested and their apartment searched. The Gestapo confiscated personal and business correspondence and other documents, including two expired and canceled American passports.

At five fifteen that afternoon the two Gestapo agents took Wollstein upstairs and at last read him the charges filed against him, citing denunciations by three people whom Wollstein knew: his landlady, a second woman, and a male servant who cleaned the apartment. His landlady, Miss Bleicher, had charged that two months earlier he had said, “All Germans are dogs.” His servant, Richard Kuhne, charged that Wollstein had declared that if another world war occurred, he would join the fight against Germany. The third, a Miss Strausz, charged that Wollstein had loaned her husband “a communistic book.” The book, as it happened, was Oil! by Upton Sinclair.

Wollstein spent the night in jail. The next morning he was permitted to confront his denouncers face-to-face. He accused them of having lied. Now, unprotected by the veil of anonymity, the witnesses wavered. “The witnesses themselves appeared to be confused and not sure of their ground,” Wollstein recalled in his affidavit.

Meanwhile, the U.S. consul in Breslau reported the arrest to the consulate in Berlin. Vice Consul Raymond Geist in turn complained to Gestapo chief Rudolf Diels and requested a full report on Wollstein’s arrest. That evening, Diels telephoned and told Geist that on his orders Wollstein would be released.

Back in Breslau, the two Gestapo men ordered Wollstein to sign a statement declaring that he would never “be an enemy to the German State.” The document included a magnanimous offer: that if he ever felt his safety endangered, he could report for arrest under protective custody.

He was released.

MARTHA ASSIGNED HERSELF the task of trimming the family tree, an enormous fir placed in the ballroom on the second floor of the house. She enlisted the help of Boris, Bill, butler Fritz, the family chauffeur, and various friends who stopped by to help. She resolved to have a tree that was entirely white and silver and so bought silver balls, silver tinsel, a large silver star, and white candles, eschewing electric lights for the more traditional and infinitely more lethal approach. “In those days,” she wrote, “it was heresy to think of electric lights for a tree.” She and her helpers kept pails of water nearby.

Her father, she wrote, was “bored with all this foolishness” and avoided the project, as did her mother, who was busy with myriad other holiday preparations. Bill was helpful to a point but had a tendency to drift away in search of more engaging pursuits. The project took two days and two evenings.

Martha found it funny that Boris was willing to help, given that he claimed not to believe in the existence of God. She smiled as she watched him at work atop a stepladder dutifully helping her trim a symbol of the foremost holy day of the Christian faith.

“My darling atheist,” she recalled telling him, “why do you help me decorate a Christmas tree to celebrate the birth of Christ?”

He laughed. “This isn’t for Christians or for Christ, liebes Kind,” he said, “only for pagans like you and me. Anyway, it is very beautiful. What would you like?” He sat at the apex of the ladder. “Do you want me to put my white orchids on top? Or would you prefer a handsome red star?”

She insisted on white.

He protested. “But red is a more beautiful color than white, darling.”

Despite the tree and Boris and the overall cheer of the season, Martha felt that a fundamental element was absent from her life in Berlin. She missed her friends—Sandburg and Wilder and her colleagues at the Tribune—and her comfortable house in Hyde Park. By now her friends and neighbors would be gathering for cozy parties, caroling sessions, and mulled wine.

On Thursday, December 14, she wrote a long letter to Wilder. She felt keenly the withering of her connection to him. Just knowing him gave her a sense of credibility, as if by refraction she too possessed literary cachet. But she had sent him a short story of hers, and he had said nothing. “Have you lost even your literary interest in me or shall I say your interest in the literary me (what there is left of it, if there was anything to begin with). And your trip to Germany. Has it been definitely passed up. Gosh, you have certainly given me the slip, to lapse back into Berlin slang for a moment!”

She had done little other writing, she told him, though she had found a certain satisfaction in talking and writing about books, thanks to her new friendship with Arvid and Mildred Harnack. Together, she told Wilder, “we have concluded we are the only people in Berlin genuinely interested in writers.” Mildred and she had begun their book column. “She is tall and beautiful with a heavy burden of honey colored hair—dark honey in some lights.… Very poor and real and fine and not much in favor though the family is old and respected. An oasis really to me mad with thirst.”

She alluded to her father’s sense that a conspiracy was mounting against him from within the State Department. “Mazes of hate and intrigue in our Embassy have as yet failed to trap us,” she wrote.

Hatreds of a more personal kind had touched her as well. In America her secret marriage to Bassett and her equally secret effort to divorce him had become public knowledge. “Nasty what my enemies cooked up about me in Chicago,” she told Wilder. One woman in particular, whom Martha identified as Fanny, had begun spreading especially unpleasant rumors out of what Martha believed to be jealousy over Martha’s publication of a short story. “She insists that you and I have had an affair and it has come back to me from two people. I wrote to her the other day pointing out the dangers of slander unfounded and indicated the mess she might get into.” She added, “I feel sorry for her, but it does not alter the fact that she is a rather slimy mouthed bitch.”

She sought to capture for Wilder a sense of the wintry city outside her windows, this new world in which she found herself. “The snow is soft and deep lying here—a copper smoke mist over Berlin by day and the brilliance of the falling moon by night. The gravel squeaks under my window at night—the sinister faced, lovely lipped and gaunt Diels of the Prussian Secret Police must be watching and the gravel spits from under his soft shoes to warn me. He wears his deep scars as proudly as I would fling about in a wreath of edelweiss.”

She expressed a deep and pervading sorrow. “The smell of peace is abroad, the air is cold, the skies are brittle, and the leaves have finally fallen. I wear a pony coat with skin like watered silk and muff of lamb. My fingers lie in depths of warmth. I have a jacket of silver sequins and heavy bracelets of rich corals. I wear about my neck a triple thread-like chain of lapis lazulis and pearls. On my face is softness and content like a veil of golden moonlight. And I have never in all my lives been so lonely.”

THOUGH MARTHA’S REFERENCE to “mazes of hate” was a bit strong, Dodd had indeed begun to sense that a campaign was gathering against him within the State Department and that its participants were the men of wealth and tradition. He suspected also that they were assisted by one or more people on his own staff providing intelligence in sotto voce fashion about him and the operation of the embassy. Dodd grew increasingly suspicious and guarded, so much so that he began writing his most sensitive letters in longhand because he did not trust the embassy stenographers to keep their contents confidential.

He had reason to be concerned. Messersmith continued his back-channel correspondence with Undersecretary Phillips. Raymond Geist, Messersmith’s number-two officer (another Harvard man) also kept watch on the affairs of Dodd and the embassy. During a stop in Washington, Geist had a long and secret conversation with Wilbur Carr, chief of consular services, during which Geist provided a wide range of intelligence, including details about unruly parties thrown by Martha and Bill that sometimes lasted until five in the morning. “On one occasion the hilarity was so great,” Geist told Carr, that it drew a written complaint to the consulate. This prompted Geist to call Bill into his office, where he warned him, “If there was a repetition of that conduct it would have to be reported officially.” Geist also offered a critique of Ambassador Dodd’s performance: “The Ambassador is mild mannered and unimpressive whereas the only kind of person who can deal successfully with the Nazi Government is a man of intelligence and force who is willing to assume a dictatorial attitude with the Government and insist upon his demands being met. Mr. Dodd is unable to do this.”

The arrival in Berlin of a new man, John C. White, to replace George Gordon as counselor of embassy could only have increased Dodd’s wariness. In addition to being wealthy and prone to hosting elaborate parties, White also happened to be married to the sister of Western European affairs chief Jay Pierrepont Moffat. The two brothers-in-law carried on a chummy correspondence, calling each other “Jack” and “Pierrepont.” Dodd would not have found the opening line of one of White’s first letters from Berlin to be terribly reassuring: “There appears to be a spare typewriter round here, so I can write you without other witnesses.” In one reply, Moffat called Dodd “a curious individual whom I find it almost impossible to diagnose.”

To make matters even more claustrophobic for Dodd, another new officer, Orme Wilson, who arrived at about the same time to become a secretary of embassy, was Undersecretary Phillips’s nephew.

When the Chicago Tribune printed an article about Dodd’s request for leave in the coming year, along with conjecture that he might quit his post, Dodd complained to Phillips that someone within the department must have revealed his leave request, intending harm. What especially galled Dodd was a comment in the article attributed to an unnamed State Department spokesman. The article stated: “Permanent retirement from the post of Ambassador to Germany is not contemplated by Professor Dodd, it was insisted here.” With the perverse logic of publicity, the denial actually raised the question of Dodd’s fate—would he retire or was he being forced from his post? The situation in Berlin was difficult enough without such speculation, Dodd told Phillips. “I believe von Neurath and his colleagues would be considerably displeased if this report were forwarded to them.”

Phillips replied, with his now-familiar textual smirk, “I cannot imagine who gave the Tribune information regarding your possible leave next Spring,” he wrote. “Certainly no one has asked the question of me.… One of the principal joys of the newspaper world is to start gossip about resignations. At times we all suffer from that phobia and do not take it seriously.”

In closing, Phillips noted that Messersmith, who was then in Washington on leave, had visited the department. “Messersmith has been with us for a few days and we have had some good talks on the various phases of the German situation.”

Dodd would have been right to read those last lines with a degree of anxiety. During one of these visits to Phillips’s office, Messersmith provided what Phillips described in his diary as “an inside glimpse of conditions in the Embassy in Berlin.” Here too the subject of Martha and Bill came up. “Apparently,” Phillips wrote, “the Ambassador’s son and daughter are not assisting the Embassy in any way and are too much inclined to running around to night clubs with certain Germans of not particularly good standing and with the press.”

Messersmith also met with Moffat and Moffat’s wife. The three spent an afternoon talking about Germany. “We went over it from all angles,” Moffat wrote in his diary. The next day he and Messersmith had lunch, and several weeks later they met again. During one conversation, according to Moffat’s diary, Messersmith claimed to be “much concerned at letters received from Dodd indicating that he was turning against his staff.”

Dodd’s recently departed counselor, George Gordon, happened to be on a lengthy leave in the United States at the same time as Messersmith. Though Gordon’s relationship with Dodd had begun badly, by now Dodd grudgingly had come to see Gordon as an asset. Gordon wrote to Dodd, “Our mutual friend G.S.M.”—meaning Messersmith—“has been staging a most active campaign in support of his candidacy for the Legation at Prague.” (Messersmith had long hoped to leave the Foreign Service behind and become a full-fledged diplomat; now, with the embassy in Prague available, he saw an opportunity.) Gordon noted that a torrent of letters and newspaper editorials testifying to Messersmith’s “sterling work” had begun flowing into the department. “A familiar touch was imparted to all this,” Gordon wrote, “when I heard that he had told one of the high officials that he really was a little embarrassed by all the press eulogies of himself because he did not like that kind of thing!!!!”

Gordon added, in longhand: “O sancta virginitas simplicitasque,” Latin for “Such pious maidenly innocence!”

ON DECEMBER 22, a Friday, Dodd got a visit from Louis Lochner, who brought troubling news. The visit itself was not unusual, for by now Dodd and the Associated Press bureau chief had become friends and met often to discuss events and exchange information. Lochner told Dodd that an official high in the Nazi hierarchy had informed him that the next morning the court in the Reichstag trial would declare its verdict, and that all but van der Lubbe would be acquitted. This was stunning news by itself and, if true, would constitute a serious blow to the prestige of Hitler’s government and in particular to Göring’s standing. It was precisely the “botch” Göring had feared. But Lochner’s informant also had learned that Göring, still incensed at Dimitrov’s impudence during their courtroom confrontation, now wanted Dimitrov dead. His death was to occur soon after the end of the trial. Lochner refused to identify his source but told Dodd that in conveying the information the source hoped to prevent further damage to Germany’s already poor international reputation. Dodd believed the informant to be Rudolf Diels.

Lochner had come up with a plan to scuttle the assassination by publicizing it but wanted first to run the idea past Dodd, in case Dodd felt the diplomatic repercussions would be too great. Dodd approved but in turn consulted Sir Eric Phipps, the British ambassador, who also agreed that Lochner should go ahead.

Lochner weighed precisely how to execute his plan. Oddly enough, the initial idea of publicizing the impending assassination had been brought to him by Göring’s own press adjutant, Martin Sommerfeldt, who also had learned of the imminent murder. His source, according to one account, was Putzi Hanfstaengl, though it is entirely possible that Hanfstaengl learned of it from Diels. Sommerfeldt told Lochner that he knew from experience that “there is one way of dissuading the general. When the foreign press claims one thing about him, he stubbornly does the opposite.” Sommerfeldt proposed that Lochner attribute the story to an “unimpeachable source” and stress that the murder would have “far reaching international consequences.” Lochner faced a quandary, however. If he published so inflammatory a report through the Associated Press, he risked enraging Göring to the point where Göring might shut down the AP’s Berlin bureau. It was far better, Lochner reasoned, to have the story break in a British newspaper. He, Sommerfeldt, and Hanfstaengl revised their plan.

Lochner knew that a very green reporter had just joined the Berlin bureau of Reuters. He invited him out for drinks at the Adlon Hotel, where Hanfstaengl and Sommerfeldt soon joined them. The new reporter savored his luck at this apparently chance convergence of senior officials.

After a few moments, Lochner mentioned to Sommerfeldt the rumor of a threat against Dimitrov. Sommerfeldt, as per plan, feigned surprise—surely Lochner had gotten it wrong, for Göring was a man of honor and Germany was a civilized land.

The Reuters reporter knew this was a big story and asked Sommerfeldt for permission to quote his denial. With a great show of reluctance, Sommerfeldt agreed.

The Reuters man raced off to file his story.

Late that afternoon, the report made the papers in Britain, Lochner told Dodd. Lochner also showed Dodd a telegram to the foreign press from Goebbels, in which Goebbels, acting as spokesman for the government, denied the existence of any plot to murder Dimitrov. Göring issued his own denial, dismissing the allegation as a “horrid rumor.”

On December 23, as Lochner had forecast, the presiding judge in the Reichstag trial announced the court’s verdict, acquitting Dimitrov, Torgler, Popov, and Tanev but finding van der Lubbe guilty of “high treason, insurrectionary arson and attempted common arson.” The court condemned him to death, while also stating—despite masses of testimony to the contrary—“that van der Lubbe’s accomplices must be sought in the ranks of the Communist Party, that communism is therefore guilty of the Reichstag fire, that the German people stood in the early part of the year 1933 on the brink of chaos into which the Communists sought to lead them, and that the German people were saved at the last moment.”

Dimitrov’s ultimate fate, however, remained unclear.

AT LAST CAME CHRISTMAS DAY. Hitler was in Munich; Göring, Neurath, and other senior officials likewise had left Berlin. The city was quiet, truly at peace. Streetcars evoked toys under a tree.

At midday all the Dodds set out in the family Chevrolet and paid a surprise visit to the Lochners. Louis Lochner wrote in a round-robin letter to his daughter in America, “We were sitting together drinking our coffee, when suddenly the whole Dodd family—the Ambassador, Mrs. Dodd, Martha, and young Mr. Dodd—snowed in on us just to wish us Merry Christmas. That was awfully nice of them, wasn’t it? I like Mr. Dodd the more I work with him; he’s a man of profound culture and endowed with one of the keenest minds I have come in contact with.” Lochner described Mrs. Dodd as “a sweet, womanly woman who … like her husband far rather visits with a family of friends than go through all the diplomatic shallow stuff. The Dodds don’t pretend to be social lions, and I admire them for it.”

Dodd spent a few moments admiring the Lochners’ tree and other decorations, then took Lochner aside and asked for the latest news of the Dimitrov affair.

Dimitrov thus far appeared to have escaped harm, Lochner said. He also reported that his highly placed source—whose identity he still would not reveal to Dodd—had thanked him for handling the matter so deftly.

Dodd feared further repercussions, however. He remained convinced that Diels had played a key role in revealing the plot. Dodd continued to be surprised by Diels. He knew his reputation as a cynic and opportunist of the first order, but he found him time and again to be a man of integrity and worthy of respect. It was Diels, indeed, who earlier in the month had persuaded Göring and Hitler to decree a Christmas amnesty for inmates of concentration camps who were not hardened criminals or clearly dangerous to state security. Diels’s precise motives cannot be known, but he considered that time, as he went from camp to camp selecting prisoners to be freed, one of the best moments of his career.

Dodd feared that Diels might have gone too far. In his diary entry for Christmas Day, Dodd wrote, “The Secret Police Chief did a most dangerous thing and I shall not be surprised later to hear that he has been sent to prison.”

In traveling about the city that day, Dodd was struck anew by the “extraordinary” German penchant for Christmas display. He saw Christmas trees everywhere, in every public square and every window.

“One might think,” he wrote, “the Germans believed in Jesus or practiced his teachings!”