settle old scores that she would have put the lives of her friends in the resistance in jeopardy.
Steeling herself, Mildred read on.
“You’ll recognize yourself in these pages, I have no doubt,” Martha continued. “But never fear. I named no names—well, I named plenty of names, as you’ll see, but not yours and not Arvid’s. I refer to you once as ‘a German married to an American’ and another time as ‘a lovely German woman who detests the terror of Nazi Germany.’ No one will ever guess I meant you.”
Mildred hoped with all her heart that Martha was right.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to finish the book before your return journey, because it’s been banned in Germany,” Martha added. “Those tender, sensitive Nazis couldn’t bear to have unflattering—but utterly truthful—portrayals of themselves flying off bookstore shelves from Hamburg to Munich. So read through to the end before you go back to Berlin, or, better yet, don’t go back at all. I know what it’s like, and as your true friend I urge you not to return. If money is the issue, you can stay with me and Alfred in New York or our estate in Connecticut. If you’re worried that Arvid will object, don’t. I’m sure he cares for your safety above all else.”
He did, Mildred reflected. She was rather surprised that he had not suggested she stay in America too, unless he was saving that argument for when they reunited after her tour.
“Please write to me before you return to Germany so I’ll receive at least one letter in which you can speak freely without fear of the censors,” Martha urged. “It’s frustrating to know so little and worry so much about our mutual friends. Please take good care of yourself. Be safe and know that I’m doing what I can on this side of the Atlantic by telling the truth of what I witnessed there.”
Perhaps Martha’s book would help change minds, Mildred thought as she returned the letter to its envelope. As the former ambassador’s daughter and an eyewitness to the rising Nazi menace, she was well placed to refute the angry shouts of the “America First” movement.
Mildred read Through Embassy Eyes in two days. Although it was forthcoming and detailed, she found it more gossipy than intellectual, but she still hoped it would enlighten American readers. She was relieved to find that Martha had protected her sources in the resistance well, although she had not done the same for certain Nazi officials who deserved censure. “If there were any logic or objectivity in Nazi sterilization laws Dr. Goebbels would have been sterilized quite some time ago,” she had written archly in a profile of the propaganda minister, and if Adolf Hitler ever read Martha’s description of their lunch date, he would surely explode in a fit of outrage and humiliation. It was little wonder the book had been banned throughout the Third Reich.
On her last day in New York, Mildred began her lecture tour at New York University. Clara and several other academic friends were in the audience, which appeared to number more than two hundred. In her presentation, titled “The German Relation to Current American Literature,” she spoke of how renowned American authors such as Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, Carl Sandburg, and Thomas Wolfe were regarded in Europe. As she discussed various political and social themes in the authors’ works, she spoke candidly about the Nazi blacklisting of “degenerate” authors and the massive book burnings of May 1933. “I not only witnessed important works of literature turning to ash,” she told them, “but also the absolute suppression of dissenting voices that followed.”
Her remarks met with enthusiastic and sustained applause. Several professors and students approached her afterward with questions about literature or the state of affairs in Germany, which she answered as thoughtfully and thoroughly as she could. Most of these conversations were cordial and interesting, but two stood out as oddly strained, even confrontational. The first was with a man—dressed almost entirely in brown except for his black boots, an outfit disconcertingly reminiscent of the Brownshirts—who wanted her opinion on the “rhetorical genius” of Joseph Goebbels. The other was with three smiling young blond women clad in nearly identical black skirts and white blouses who expressed admiration for her work and wanted to know how, as a wife and mother, she found time for a career. “I have no children,” she said simply, nodding politely when they expressed their abundant pity. She refrained from pointing out that no