There are countless books on World War 2, from serious and weighty tomes, stories of daring do and detailed explanations of pivotal moments that changed the course of a continent. Whilst there has been lots of analysis about the failings of the post-World War 1 reparations and oppression by the victors led to the problems that Germany found itself in, there has been very little written about the way it was rapidly changing from the perceptive of holidaymakers and visitors to the country. After gaining political power, it didn't take long for him to seize total control and begin to roll out the nationalist policies across the country. The people that were drawn to Germany at this time came from all walks of life and saw the way that it was changing, but there were glimpses of the persecution that was starting to happen across the country as the vision of the Aryan ideal was implemented. The Olympics were the point where the Third Reich could showcase itself on the world stage and athletes and visitors where shown a sanitised country. Those that managed to peer behind the scenes though, were startled and horrified by what they saw. Fascinating . . . surreal scenes pepper Boyd’s deep trawl of travellers’ tales from the scores of visitors who were drawn to the ‘new Germany’ in the 1930s.’ – Spectator

Village in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd — Emma Finnigan PR A Village in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd — Emma Finnigan PR

Persico, Joseph (1995). Infamy on Trial. New York: Penguin Books Reprint Edition. ISBN 0-14-016622-X. Those who actively supported National Socialism were forced to make adjustments. Anyone who stepped out of line or criticized the regime risked “protective custody” in the newly established camp for political prisoners at Dachau. As the months went by, some villagers found Nazi methods increasingly disturbing, but others, dismissing the more unpleasant rumors as foreign propaganda, remained committed to the regime. First 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 of the year. Fascinating, compelling account of one tiny village's journey through the rise of fascism in Germany. By following the villagers of Oberstdorf throughout the decades, Julia Boyd hammers home a brutally effective way of detailing the horrors of Nazism and the humanity of those who suffered at its hands. One day in 2018, the prolific documentary producer John Battsek received a call from Diane Weyermann of Participant Media, asking him if he would travel to the East Sussex village of Ditchling to meet a 69-year-old director named Luke Holland. Weyermann said that Holland had spent several years interviewing hundreds of Germans who were in some way complicit in the Holocaust, from those whose homes neighboured the concentration camps to former members of the Waffen SS. The responses he captured ran the gamut from shame to denial to a ghastly kind of pride. Now he wanted to introduce these testimonies to a mainstream audience, and he needed help. Dachau was to the north of the Oberstdorf, but the villages were already aware of some of the Nazi round-ups of its citizens, especially the Jews. By 1941 most were well aware of the roundups that had been undertaken in the East in their name. This leaked out via the Feldpost, or when soldiers were on leave at home.With an almost novelistic touch, [Boyd] presents a range of stories of human interest . . . The uncomfortable moral of Travellers in the Third Reich is that people see and hear only what they already want to see and hear.’ – David Pryce-Jones, Standpoint I recently read Julia Boyd's Travellers in the Third Reich which gave outsider impressions of pre war Germany which was good but this one was in another league. At the end of the war a list of the Nazis in the village was completed from various sorts. From an incomplete list it was found that there were 455 names on the list, roughly 10% of the village, which also happened to mirror the Nazis membership across Germany. Nazi history began in the village in 1927 when a postman, Karl Weinlein transferred into the village from Nuremberg. Weinlein had a better NSDAP party membership number than Goebbels. A low party number conferred on Weinlein hallowed status within the Party. The villages were reluctant to join, but the Wall Street crash did offer fertile ground even in Oberstdorf.

VILLAGE IN THE THIRD REICH - AbeBooks 9781783966561: VILLAGE IN THE THIRD REICH - AbeBooks

The most harrowing chapter is a case study of a young man blind from birth who was one of the victims of the "euthanasia" programme which was designed to get rid of the disabled, seen by the Nazis as a burden and a blot on the perfect master race. I had read about this programme before, in the context of its being the forerunner of the Final Solution, whereby the Nazis practiced the methods they eventually used on the Jews, and other "racial undesirables" such as Gypsies. The book possibly does fall down in not making that connection especially as the chapter on how village Jews were affected doesn't convey the full horror - some were helped to commit suicide before deportation, some managed to leave the country, and some were hidden, or shielded by the mayor, a "good Nazi". As far as I recall, only a couple of people were actually deported to camps and they managed to survive and return to the village after the war. The Jews always formed a tiny minority in the village so that part of the book isn't really representative of a lot of other, often more urban, communities. Caster Semenya’s The Race to Be Myself made me gasp 31 October, 2023 Opinion | James Blunt's irony-memoir shows he's scared to be sincere - just like the rest of us 27 October, 2023 The Pole and Other Stories shows J M Coetzee is one of the world’s greatest writers 26 October, 2023Working with Pope, Battsek, co-producer Riete Oord and the editor, Stefan Ronowicz, Holland had to whittle a lean, 90-minute film out of almost 600 hours of footage, comprising around 300 interviews. These ranged from one-off half-hour conversations to those spanning 16 separate encounters. “He was insatiable,” Pope says. “If he was still around, he’d probably still be looking for more. He was doing it for his grandparents, but it took on a larger significance when he screened some material for survivors. One said that to hear it coming from the mouths of those who were responsible confirms your own suffering.” Theodor Weissenberger, who was born blind, with his siblings in the garden of Villa Gschwender in Oberstdorf