The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history.
A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the New Germany, she has one affair after another, including with the surprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler's true character and ruthless ambition.
Chapter 2: That Vacancy in Berlin
Chapter 10: Tiergartenstrasse 27a
Chapter 14: The Death of Boris
Chapter 15: The “Jewish Problem”
Chapter 18: Warning from a Friend
Chapter 21: The Trouble with George
Chapter 22: The Witness Wore Jackboots
Chapter 24: Getting Out the Vote
Chapter 26: The Little Press Ball
Chapter 33: “Memorandum of a Conversation with Hitler”
Chapter 35: Confronting the Club
Chapter 40: A Writer’s Retreat
Chapter 41: Trouble at the Neighbor’s
Chapter 44: The Message in the Bathroom
Chapter 45: Mrs. Cerruti’s Distress
EPILOGUE: The Queer Bird in Exile