Having previously read this author’s The Devil in the White City Murder, Magic, and
Madness at the Fair that Changed America, I was
expecting another excellent “not fiction” that reads like a novel. I was not disappointed in this book
subtitled: Love, Terror, and an
American family in Hitler’s Berlin. It’s
an amazing read.
William E. Dodd, a professor from
Chicago, moves his family to Berlin in 1933 to become ambassador to
Germany. Letters home from Dodd, and
especially his daughter, Martha give first-hand descriptions of how Hitler,
Goering, and Goebbels quickly turned Germany into a place where the press was
censored, alarming new laws were enacted, and Jews were openly attacked on the
streets with little or no interference from the citizenry.
This true history episode can be
summed up as the author quotes
Christopher Isherwood ( another firsthand observer of Hitler’s Berlin):
”in the
morning light, it was all as raw and frank as the voice of history which tells
you not to fool yourself: this can happen to any city, to anyone, to you.”
Crown, 2011 448 p.
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