“Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power” by Andrew Nagorski
By Gerard DeGroot,
Gerard DeGroot
Mar 16, 2012 09:49 PM EDT
The Washington Post
Nonentities are sometimes rendered significant by the events that surround them. Take, for instance, Martha Dodd, a silly woman whose judgment was clouded by her libido. In 1933, at the age of 24, she went to Germany with her father, William, the newly appointed American ambassador. That move gave her the opportunity to sleep her way through Berlin, instead of her native Chicago.
Handsome Nazis convinced her that all was wonderful under Hitler. “She just liked sleeping with attractive men,” one of her friends observed, “and that’s how she learned about politics and history.” In truth, she did not learn much.
(Simon & Schuster) - ’Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power’ by Andrew Nagorski
When Dodd tired of Nazis, she decided the Soviets were much more interesting and started sleeping with them instead. She is perhaps the most bizarre character in Andrew Nagorski’s “Hitlerland,” but not by much. Interwar Germany was a strange place that attracted strange visitors. Nagorski has collected the recollections of these travelers, or at least the American ones. Their accounts are knitted into an interesting narrative of Adolf Hitler’s rise. “Hitlerland” tells a familiar story in an American accent.
The cover boasts that the book contains some big names, including George Kennan, Charles Lindbergh, Jesse Owens, Edward R. Murrow, Sinclair Lewis and Richard Helms. But they in fact have small parts. The meat of the testimony comes from lesser figures such as the journalists Sigrid Schultz and Hubert Knickerbocker, the embassy official George Messersmith, and the military attache Truman Smith. Their recollections are bulked out with some fascinating trivialities.
As Nagorski points out, Berlin was, during the interwar period, the most interesting and exciting city on Earth. A sublime and cutting-edge culture was combined with peculiar politics, skyrocketing inflation and a lot of kinky sex. The political drama was rendered all the more fascinating by the shenanigans of a clown called Hitler whom few observers took seriously. Americans were welcomed because they represented the New World, a state of aspiration for Germans. Given the inflation, American dollars were powerful, making the frolics these visitors could enjoy in this land of fantasy all the more intense.
Americans reacted to Hitler rather as any other nationality did. First they ridiculed him, then they expressed grudging admiration for the order he brought to Germany. Later, they turned a blind eye to his anti-Semitism, excused his craving for territorial expansion and doubted his appetite for war. A few warned of Hitler’s threat, but they were largely ignored.
Most Americans tolerated German racism precisely because it was directed at Jews. The most striking feature of this book is how easily these visitors grafted themselves onto the prejudices of their hosts. Typical was Donald Watt, who arrived in Germany in 1932 to organize a student exchange. He convinced himself, on no evidence, that “relatively few” Jews were mistreated and decided that the main cause of anti-Semitism was that “a large proportion of all business was in Jewish hands.” In Berlin, hating Jews was the equivalent of high fashion.
These books offer keen insights into leadership and management challenges, which on a day-to-day basis can bring their own dramas, twisting plot lines and, in this city, political intrigue.
This commenter is a Washington Post contributor. Post contributors aren’t staff, but may write articles or columns. In some cases, contributors are sources or experts quoted in a story.
Comments our editors find particularly useful or relevant are displayed in Top Comments, as are comments by users with these badges: . Replies to those posts appear here, as well as posts by staff writers.
To pause and restart automatic updates, click "Live" or "Paused". If paused, you'll be notified of the number of additional comments that have come in.
Comments our editors find particularly useful or relevant are displayed in Top Comments, as are comments by users with these badges: . Replies to those posts appear here, as well as posts by staff writers.
.JPG)
Loading...
Comments