Martha Dodd

Martha Eccles Dodd (born October 8, 1908 in Ashland, Virginia , † August 10, 1990 in Prague ), was an American writer.

Life

Dodd was the daughter of the American historian and politician William Edward Dodd and his wife Martha Johns. In 1931 she married the New York banker George Bassett Roberts (1894-1996) in Chicago. Roberts was Vice President of the National City Bank and Treasurer of the National Bureau of Economic Research . It was not until November 1933 that the marriage became publicly known through the press. In 1934 she was divorced. After her father, who was considered one of the best American experts on Germany, was appointed American ambassador for the German Reich in July 1933 by the newly elected US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt , she accompanied him to Berlin .

In the following years, Dodd lived in Berlin with her parents and younger brother William Edward Dodd Jr. in the residence of the American ambassador on Bendlerstrasse. During her time in Berlin, Dodd had the opportunity to observe conditions in Germany during the early Hitler years from close up, but also from the perspective of an outsider. After her return to the United States, she recorded her experiences and impressions in several memory books.

As the daughter of the American ambassador, Dodd was invited to numerous receptions and other events of the diplomatic corps during her years in the Reich capital . She came into contact with numerous important and well-known personalities in German politics and Berlin society. Among other things, she was introduced to most of the leading men of the National Socialist regime such as Joseph Goebbels , Hermann Göring , Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Hitler himself. In her private life, she made friends with Mildred Harnack , who at the time was head of the women's club at the American embassy, ​​and with the diplomat Hans-Otto Meissner . She was also said to have had numerous affairs, for example with Rudolf Diels , the first head of the Gestapo , with Ernst Udet , with Hitler's foreign press chief Ernst Hanfstaengl and with Boris Vinogradow , the secretary of the Soviet embassy in Berlin. The last-mentioned relationship is the only one that is considered historically secure.

After Dodd had met the Nazi regime in a very naive and uncritical way during the first months of her stay in Berlin, her view of the Hitler state changed drastically in the summer of 1934. The murder wave from June 30 to July 2, 1934, which became known as the Röhm Putsch - in the course of which Hitler had actual and alleged opponents killed in his own ranks - alarmed them and prompted them to view the National Socialist rulers more critically from now on. In contrast to her apolitical stance in her first year in Berlin, Dodd observed the conditions in the German capital from 1934 to 1937 with growing intellectual and political maturity and clarity: When she published her memories of her time in Berlin in 1939 - that was written down before the war began, Her knowledge of the German rulers had already advanced so far that she very precisely predicted the foreign policy goals that they later attempted to implement: the conquest of large areas in Eastern Europe and the "accounting" with the Jews.

After her return to the United States in December 1937, Dodd married Alfred Kaufman Stern (1897–1986) of Manhattan on September 12, 1938 in Round Hill , Virginia . Stern was a music publisher and chairman of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council of New York . He had previously been married to Marion Rosenwald, a daughter of the American fashion designer Julius Rosenwald , one of the founders of Sears Holdings Corporation . Marion's legacy had made Stern a millionaire. The marriage produced a son, Richard.

After the publication of her Berlin Memoirs in 1939, which became a bestseller, Dodd was considered one of the most staunch American anti-fascists. Until the end of the Second World War , she distinguished herself through her anti-Nazi activities. In March 1941 she published her father's memoirs, which also cast the Nazi regime in a negative light - but also brought the accusation that, due to her failure to edit the book carefully, the names of German opponents of Hitler were among them her father kept in contact to have the finished printing work (which endangered it). In 1944 she gave the Roman Sowing the Wind - German The wind sow  - out in which it deals with the involvement of the mass of the Germans in the Nazi regime.

In the early 1950s, while persecuting Communist cadres in the United States, Dodd and her husband, who were known to be spies for the Soviet secret service KGB , panicked and went into exile in Mexico. From 1957 they lived in Czechoslovakia, where Dodd died in 1990.

Fonts

• Through Embassy Eyes . Harcourt, Brace and Co., New York 1939. (In German as: From the window of the embassy. Truthful description of an eyewitness , Berlin 1946. [abridged version published by the Soviet military administration] and as: My years in Germany 1933 to 1937. Nice to meet you, Mr. Hitler . Frankfurt am Main 2005. [full version])
• Sowing the wind . Harcourt, Brace and Co., New York 1945.
• Who sow the wind . Roman, Berlin 1947 (translator: H. Hubalek; 2nd edition Berlin / GDR 1959, translator Ulla Hengst).
• The Searching Light . Citadel Press, New York 1955.
• The oath of John Minot . Berlin 1964.

literature

• Oliver Lubrich: Forms of Historical Experience. The Metamorphoses of Martha Dodd
• Shareen Blair Brysac: Mildred Harnack and the “Red Chapel”. The story of an unusual woman and a resistance movement . Bern 2003, ISBN 3-502-18090-3 .
• Gert Rosiejka: The Red Chapel. "Treason" as anti-fascist resistance , Hamburg 1986. ISBN 3-925622-16-0
• Oh, I thought it burned down! In: Berliner Zeitung , July 11, 2005; Review of Nice to Meet You Mr. Hitler :

Web links

• Literature by and about Martha Dodd in the catalog of the German National Library
• ceiberweiber.at Review of Nice to Meet You Mr. Hitler
• Obituary in the NYT
• The daring adventures of Martha D.
• Biography (English)
• Photo DHM

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Volker Ullrich: Hitler needs a woman . In: Die Zeit , No. 23/2005
2. ↑ ingentaconnect.com  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.