What was it like at the time?

At midday on Thursday, 8 June 1933 — Erik Larson is very keen on his times — the newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt had a call put through to the history department at the University of Chicago.

At midday on Thursday, 8 June 1933 — Erik Larson is very keen on his times — the newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt had a call put through to the history department at the University of Chicago. Since taking office in early March Roosevelt had been trying to fill the post of ambassador to Berlin, and with none of the usual suspects prepared to take on the job and Congress on the point of adjourning for the summer recess, time was fast running out.

If nothing will quite explain why Roosevelt thought the ‘almost uniquely ill-qualified’ William E. Dodd was the answer to Berlin — smart money had it that he had simply phoned the wrong Dodd — it is a still greater mystery as to why Dodd should imagine Berlin was the answer for him.