In the Garden of Beasts

Martha meets Sigrid Schultz, an American correspondent for the Chicago Tribune who is “tenacious, outspoken, and utterly fearless" (53). Schultz informs Martha about recent acts of political violence and imprisonment, but Martha refuses to believe her, insisting it all must be “inadvertent expressions of the wild enthusiasm that had gripped the country" (53).

She goes dancing with famous correspondent HR Knickerbocker of the New York Evening Post, who also describes the growing menace, but Martha dismisses his warning: “Martha's cheery view of things was widely shared by outsiders visiting Germany and especially Berlin" (55).

Behind the scenes, however, Germany “had undergone a rapid and sweeping revolution that reached deep into the fabric of daily life" (56). The Nazis launch a campaign of “Coordination,” or “Gleichschaltung,” to bring everyone to heel. People are surprisingly eager to conform, to the point of denouncing others over petty slights. Everyone must use the Hitler salute, “even in the most mundane of encounters" (58).

The Nazis ban Jews from jobs in government, law, and medicine. Jews make up only 1% of the German population, and outsiders don’t notice their plight. Some Jews leave within weeks of Hitler’s ascension, but most stay, believing the threats against them aren’t serious.