The Berlin Mission: The American Who Resisted Nazi Germany from Within

by Richard Breitman

Overview

An unknown story of an unlikely hero—the US consul who best analyzed the threat posed by Nazi Germany and predicted the horrors to come


In 1929, Raymond Geist went to Berlin as a consul and handled visas for emigrants to the US. Just before Hitler came to power, Geist expedited the exit of Albert Einstein. Once the Nazis began to oppress Jews and others, Geist's role became vitally important. It was Geist who extricated Sigmund Freud from Vienna and Geist who understood the scale and urgency of the humanitarian crisis.


Even while hiding his own homosexual relationship with a German, Geist fearlessly challenged the Nazi police state whenever it abused Americans in Germany or threatened US interests. He made greater use of a restrictive US immigration quota and secured exit visas for hundreds of unaccompanied children. All the while, he maintained a working relationship with high Nazi officials such as Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, and Hermann Göring.


While US ambassadors and consuls general cycled in and out, the indispensable Geist remained in Berlin for a decade. An invaluable analyst and problem solver, he was the first American official to warn explicitly that what lay ahead for Germany's Jews was what would become known as the Holocaust.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541742161
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	10/29/2019
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	537,172
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Richard Breitman is distinguished professor emeritus in History at American University and the author or co-author of twelve books and many articles in German history, U.S. history, and the Holocaust. Apart from his latest book, FDR and the Jews, co-authored with Allan J. Lichtman, he is best known for The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution and Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew. He lives in the D.C. metro area.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

Introduction 3

Chapter 1 Visas 5

Chapter 2 The Rise of the Nazis 17

Chapter 3 Americans Encounter the Nazi Revolution 39

Chapter 4 Very Private Lives 55

Chapter 5 Probing the New State 67

Chapter 6 Immigration and Emigration 87

Chapter 7 Post-Olympic Competition 103

Chapter 8 Austria and Freud 123

Chapter 9 The Refugee Crisis 139

Chapter 10 Kristallnacht 153

Chapter 11 Testing Göring 173

Chapter 12 Children 189

Chapter 13 Toward War 199

Chapter 14 From Afar 211

Chapter 15 Indirect Influence 227

Epilogue 239

Appendix: Letter from Raymond Geist to Hugh Wilson 247

Acknowledgments 253

Notes 257

Index 309

Photo section appears after page 138

Editorial Reviews

07/22/2019

As historian Breitman recounts in this inspiring history, U.S. consul Raymond Geist’s tireless work in extracting victims of Nazism from Germany before WWII called for extreme finesse and a rare balancing act. As the U.S. consul in Berlin, Geist’s job entailed handling visas for emigrants to the U.S. Breitman explains that, as Hitler’s regime slowly began its systematic oppression and extermination of Europe’s Jews, Geist (1885–1955) tangled with the American government. Negotiating immigration quotas and constantly changing standards (such as a provision barring anyone “likely to become a public charge”), Geist worked to gently but firmly cajole, persuade, and manipulate his superiors. At the same time, he was meeting with and personally pressuring Nazi officials such as Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler to allow Jews to leave the country—and hiding his romantic relationship with a German man. In securing visas for hundreds of unaccompanied children and expediting the emigration of such people as Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, Breitman writes, “Geist fought against Nazi Germany indirectly.” Breitman heralds Geist’s heroism, noting that he was among the first to sound the alarm about Hitler’s plans for world domination and genocide. This stirring history, which unearths a little-known role model of resistance, will move readers. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Breitman has...located a 1938 document, published in full as an appendix, which today reads with a terrifying clairvoyance. 'The Germans are determined to solve the Jewish problem without the assistance of other countries, and that means eventual annihilation,' Geist wrote. This, Breitman says, amounts to the first, explicit warning of the coming Holocaust by an American official, and certainly qualifies as the book's most significant contribution to the historical record."—James Kirchick, Tablet


"Inspiring...This stirring history, which unearths a little-known role model of resistance, will move readers."—Publishers Weekly


"A vivid chronicle of 1930s Germany conveyed through the life of a lesser-known historical figure."—Kirkus Reviews


"No American knew Nazi Germany better than Raymond Geist—and no one is better qualified to tell his story than Richard Breitman. As the long-serving US consul in Berlin, Geist served as the trusted intermediary between terrified Jews and their Gestapo tormentors. One of America's leading Holocaust historians, Breitman has skillfully pieced together Geist's extraordinary, largely untold life, including a politically risky homosexual romance. A thrilling read, and a great achievement."—Michael Dobbs, author of The Unwanted: America, Auschwitz, and a Village caught in between

"In Berlin Mission, Richard Breitman tells us the riveting story of Raymond Geist, an American diplomat stationed in Nazi Germany throughout the pre-war years. Based on entirely new documentation, the book presents the difficult path of an official in charge of visas to the United States, who witnessed and understood the growing plight of German Jews and helped many to reach the American safe haven, notwithstanding a restrictive immigration policy. Geist's efforts became the more crucial as, in early as in December 1938, he deduced from his contacts at the highest ranks of the Gestapo that the Jews remaining under Hitler's domination would ultimately perish. He conveyed his assessment to Washington. In our times of moral uncertainty, this book is a must."—Saul Friedländer, professor emeritus in history, UCLA

From the Publisher

2019-08-07
The story of Raymond Geist (1885-1955), United States consul in Berlin from 1929 to 1939.

Breitman (Emeritus, History/American Univ.; co-author: FDR and the Jews, 2013, etc.) maintains convincingly that Geist was the most competent American diplomatic figure in Germany, especially after the Nazis took power in 1933. A professional actor and scholar (Harvard doctorate), he was overqualified in 1921 when he joined the Consular Service, at the time separate and inferior to the Diplomatic Service, concerned mostly with visa matters and problems of American citizens. During Geist's assignment in Berlin, these duties became a matter of life and death. Few colleagues knew how to deal with the Nazis, and the ambassadors were callow political appointees. Far more educated, fluent in German, and a natural schmoozer, Geist became so valuable that superiors kept him in Berlin for a decade even though consuls usually rotated after a few years. Most scholars agree on the value of Geist's reports to U.S. officials, in which he emphasized the Nazi regime's brutality, predicted Hitler's intention to go to war, and described the vicious persecution of Jews, warning that it would end in mass murder. He worked hard and often creatively to process the avalanche of requests for U.S. visas, but, a loyal civil servant, he obeyed America's restrictive immigration laws. The sad truth is that most Americans, including members of Congress, overwhelmingly opposed admitting refugees, and many high officials in the State Department were anti-Semitic. Although sympathetic, Franklin Roosevelt refused to twist arms. "In the fiscal year from July 1, 1933, to June 30, 1934, 891 people got US immigration visas in Berlin," writes Breitman. "This means that somewhere around twelve thousand people were either formally rejected or, more commonly, placed on the informal and inactive waiting list." The author deplores this heartless policy, but he mostly praises Geist's efforts, which were admirable but never heroic.

A vivid chronicle of 1930s Germany conveyed through the life of a lesser-known historical figure.

Kirkus Reviews

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