Leni Riefenstahl: Triumph of the Will
The Dodd Family
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin
by Erik Larson

Leni Riefenstahl: Triumph of the Will
The Dodd Family
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin
by Erik Larson
Endgame 1945 is an historical narrative told from the perspective of eyewitnesses, about the final three months after VE Day in Europe. It covers in fascinating detail events leading to the deaths of Hitler and Mussolini, the liberation of concentration camps and the challenges faced by allied occupying forces contending with the mass human trauma of war devastated Europe. It describes the Herculean task faced by relief agencies dealing with displaced persons and the traumas experienced by German women and children in Allied occupied Germany.
This book is a tour de force. Stafford is a brilliant writer and historian and his subject, these specific three months, has been mostly neglected by historians. This is a riveting, compelling read that is difficult to put down and stays with you long after you finish reading it. The extent of the trauma in Europe was mind boggling. The task of restoring order, Sisyphean. The heroism of the allies incredible and the suffering of so many hard to contemplate.
(Photo: Struthof Concentration Camp, C. Knoke).
I am addicted to reading about the history of WWII and I really wanted to like this book.
Binet’s book however frustrated me. The constant insertion of the author into the text and his continuous use of the word “I” was incredibly distracting. Who was this book about precisely, the author or Heydrich? The purported topic, Heydrich was interesting, the author’s pathos? Not so much.
His short chapter format consisting of 257 chapters, some of which were only a few sentences long, resulted in a choppy, stilted flow.
His constant debunking of historical novels, and their fictionalized aspects, gets a bit tired, but I found his statement that, “I am struck all the same by the fact that, in every case, fiction wins out over history,” provocative. But I also was then, confused by his many discussions of Hollywood movies about the era and his continuous insertion of fictionalized vignettes that he explained were to serve as examples of how he wasn’t fictionalizing. One senses he is really fascinated with historical fictionalized accounts but thinks he is doing something far superior. I think he may not have achieved this goal.
He is an interesting, intelligent man, and this should have been a better book.
If you want a recommendation for a riveting read on the era, try, “Endgame, 1945: The Missing Final Chapter of World War II,” by David Stafford.