"Using letters, diaries, and memoirs, Metcalfe distills the personalities, viewpoints, and day-to-day reactions of five alert and often directly involved witnesses to Hitler's consolidation of power. They are: U.S. Ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, and his high-spirited daughter, Martha; Bella Fromm, a glamorous German society columnist who was Jewish and made no secret of it; Ernest Hanfstaengl, Hitler's somewhat buffoonish foreign-press chief; and Rudolf Diels, the first head of the Gestapo." —Publishers Weekly