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William Edward Dodd (October 21, 1869 – February 9, 1940) [2] was an American historian, author and diplomat.A liberal Democrat, he served as the United States Ambassador to Germany from 1933 to 1937 during the Nazi era.
Frederic M. Sackett, Ambassador February 12, 1930 March 24, 1933 William E. Dodd, Ambassador August 30, 1933 December 29, 1937 Hugh R. Wilson, Ambassador March 3, 1938 November 16, 1938 Alexander C. Kirk, Chargé d'Affaires May 1939 October 1940 Leland B. Morris, Chargé d'Affaires October 1940 December 11, 1941
Martha Eccles Dodd (October 8, 1908 – August 10, 1990) was an American journalist and novelist. The daughter of William Edward Dodd, [5] US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first Ambassador to Germany, Dodd lived in Berlin from 1933–1937 [6] and was a witness to the rise of the Third Reich.
Dodd was the son of William E. Dodd, who served as United States Ambassador to Germany between 1933 and 1938, and the brother of Martha Dodd, who had affairs with Nazis and a Soviet NKVD agent before becoming an accused secret agent of the Soviet Union. [2]
The ambassador, who had earned his PhD in Leipzig forty years earlier, and who, at the time of his appointment, was head of the History Department at the University of Chicago, initially hoped that Germany's new Nazi government would grow more moderate, including in its persecution of the Jews. [2]
The German foreign office (Auswärtiges Amt (AA)) had a sizable network of diplomatic missions when Nazis came to power in 1933. While it was a deeply traditional and elitist organisation within the German civil service, it enthusiastically helped the Nazis prosecute an ambitious foreign policy.
He served as Ambassador to Germany from March 3 to November 16, 1938. He attended the congress of the Nazi Party in Nuremberg in September 1938 and broke with the precedent established by his predecessor, William E. Dodd, who had refused to attend. In Dodd's absence, the embassy's chargé d'affaires had attended the previous year. [9]
He was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1924 and served from March 4, 1925, to January 9, 1930, when he resigned, having been appointed Ambassador to Germany by President Herbert Hoover. He served from 1930 to 1933, when he resigned. Afterwards, he resumed his former business activities.