There were even Americans who saluted and met Hitler! In a restaurant, a parade, a ceremony and thought he was just superb! Kind, soft-spoken, intelligent, and he likes children!

Travelers in the Third Reich, by Julia Boyd review - The Washington Post Travelers in the Third Reich, by Julia Boyd review - The

Another reason for many people’s willingness to ignore – at least to an extent – the darker sides of National Socialism, even late into the 1930s, was their love for Germany. Many academics “chose to travel in the Third Reich because Germany’s cultural heritage was simply too precious to renounce for politics, however unpleasant those politics might be.” Others were taken in by the idyllic atmosphere of Germany’s cities and landscapes. The writer J.A. Cole, who was not a Nazi sympathiser, wrote: ‘I cannot see a German town for the first time on a sunny morning without a rising of the spirits, a feeling that here is place delightfully foreign yet at the same time a place where one could live happily.’ The author comments that “it would seem that those travellers fundamentally hostile to the Nazis instinctively looked beyond the regime to what they imagined to be the real Germany; a country that, despite everything, maintained its enduring power to beguile and entrance.” She includes professionals such as diplomats and journalists, famous writers, students and holiday takers and everything in between. Everyone thought Germany was beautiful with its landscapes, music culture and its universities. Very few included significant negative comments. NAZI’s were very good with PR, showing how the country had improved since the war and the draconian policies of the Versailles Treaty. And were they ever good at putting on a show! All that hid the very nasty core of their racism that eventually led to the halocaust. The author of this book has really done the legwork of trawling through the letters and diaries of many visitors to Germany in the 1930s, ranging from English aristocrats on tour to American high schoolers to a Chinese PhD student and W.E.B. DuBois. She doesn't succeed in truly reconciling what these visitors thought, because there are so many personalities and experiences involved, and she doesn't follow through to the obvious (if possibly unavailable) conclusion of what all these people thought later, in hindsight. But the book is studded with glints of the travelers' interesting observations and it portrays many facets of the 1930s, a period I am increasingly convinced most Americans know nothing about.And what were ordinary Germans thinking at the time? And what about the MULTITUDE of tourists, journalists, students, scholars, political figures and even entire happy families doing visiting Germany right up and to the very day the war began?)

Travellers in the Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism Through the Eyes of Travellers in the Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism Through the

Adding to the confusion, German propaganda and the distortion of truth were pervasive. You didn’t even have to set foot in Germany to be subjected to it, as from 1933 onwards the Reich Committee for Tourism did everything they could to lure foreign tourists to Germany in an effort to counter the Nazis’ negative image abroad. The Committee reassured potential visitors that “whatever they may read in their ‘Jewish’ newspapers – life in the Third Reich was entirely normal. Germany was a ‘peace-loving, trustworthy and progressive nation, a joyful country of festival-goers, hearty eaters, smiling peasants and music lovers’.” One headline for the book is: Without the benefit of hindsight, how do you interpret what’s right in front of your eyes? SA lyderis Erns Rohm buvo homoseksualus ir gėjų barai ant bangos kur lietuviai berniukai linksmino vyrus. Hitleris tada buvo tiesiog nežinomas jaunuolis bandantis iškilti. Boyd’s brief afterword is unnecessary – her point that “there are surely few totalitarian states that welcome foreign visitors with as much friendliness and enthusiasm as did Nazi Germany” would have served better in the introduction. The book should have ended with the close of Chapter 21 But one thing was clear – the war had ended. Never again would anyone travel in the Third Reich.Comparison with Nagorski’s book is informative, whereas the “Night of the Long Knives” and announcement of 1939’s German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact are major events for his witnesses, mainly reporters and diplomats, they are mentioned by Boyd but not by the travelers she quotes. On the other hand Boyd gives us eyewitness accounts of 1933 book burnings and the 1937 Much “Degenerate Art” exhibit, neither of which I recall in Nagorski. Both books give much emphasis to the 1936 Olympics and 1938’s Kristallnacht. The author aptly finishes her book with the following words: Perhaps the most chilling fact to emerge from these travellers’ tales is that so many perfectly decent people could return home from Hitler’s Germany singing its praises. Nazi evil permeated every aspect of German society yet, when blended with the seductive pleasures still available to the foreign visitor, the hideous reality was too often and for too long ignored. More than eight decades after Hitler became chancellor we are still haunted by the Nazis. It is right that we should be. The number of different perspectives is dizzyingly diverse. Indeed sometimes I found it too detailed and repetitive. 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. What comes through strongly is that many of the travellers were viewing their experience through the lens of a love for Germany the country - its cultural heritage and landscape - which evidently distorted the evidence of their senses regarding the Nazi regime. And of course, the Nazi propaganda machine played on this - its effectiveness was not confined to the German population.