The Washington Post called Travellers in the Third Reich "riveting". [2] It was awarded the 2018 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History. [3] Publishers Weekly called it a "fresh, surprising perspective on how Nazi Germany was seen at the time". [4]

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. Laying bare the tragedies, the compromises, the suffering and the disillusionment. Exemplary microhistory.’ Roger Moorehouse, author of First to Fight It is a tale of conflicting loyalties and desires, of shattered dreams, despair and destruction – but one in which, ultimately, human resilience triumphs. 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.Hidden deep in the Bavarian mountains lies the picturesque village of Oberstdorf—a place where for hundreds of years people lived simple lives while history was made elsewhere. Yet even this remote idyll could not escape the brutal iron grip of the Nazi regime. Vivid, moving stories leave us asking "What would I have done?"' Professor David Reynolds, author of Island Stories

alists, slave labourers, schoolchildren, tourists and aristocrats. We meet the Jews who survived – and those who didn’t; the Nazi mayor who tried to shield those persecuted by the regime; and a blind boy whose life was judged ‘not worth living’. Travelers in the Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism: 1919–1945 by Julia Boyd". Publishers Weekly. 2018-06-25 . Retrieved 2023-04-13. Laying bare the tragedies, the compromises, the suffering and the disillusionment. Exemplary microhistory.' Roger Moorehouse, author of First to Fight The village lies in a part of Bavaria in a region known as the Allgäu, long recognized for the beauty of its mountains and the toughness of its people. Oberstdorf is uniquely defined by its geographical position as the most southern village in Germany. Once there, the traveler has quite literally reached the end of the road, as only footpaths lead south across the mountains to Austria. And as we got to know the villagers better, it came as no surprise to learn that their response to these cataclysmic events was driven as much by practical everyday concerns, the instinct to safeguard their families—from threats both real and imagined—and personal loyalties and enmities as by the great political and social issues of the time.

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A Village in the Third Reich tells a tale of conflicting loyalties and desires, of shattered dreams – but one in which, ultimately, human resilience triumphs.

A Village In The Third Reich is a fascinating and often very sad portait of forty years in the life of the Bavarian village Oberstdorf from 1915 to 1955. Nestled in the Alps, Oberstdorf was a burgeoning tourist town, relatively cosmopolitan and affluent enough, and yet like all of German slowly got swamped by the rise of National Socialism. Boyd and Patel have done a very deep dive on what seems to be a hugely comprehensive archive to tell the story of how the village adapted and changed, but also to follow the villagers as they themselves escaped, got sent to camps or went to war. There are a lot of tragic stories here, though there are reconstructions of the willing Nazi's there are also big questions about Good Germans and perhaps the unthinkable, Good Nazis. Focused on economic recovery, Oberstdorf residents initially ignored Hitler and his new party in Munich. When in 1927, a postman tried to establish a branch of the Nazi Party in the village’s staunchly Catholic community, it was, as he later complained to propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, an uphill struggle. A Village in the Third Reich: How Ordinary Lives were Transformed by the Rise of Fascism, 2022. Cowritten with Angelika Patel. If you would like to ask a question during the event, please type your question into the chat function, and we will endeavour to answer as many questions as possible during the Q&A. Your webcam will not be seen during this event.Having read, and enjoyed, Julia Boyd’s previous book, “Travellers in the Third Reich,” I was eager to read her new title, which looks at the Third Reich from the viewpoint of the Bavarian village of Oberstdorf. This was a largely Catholic village at the time, the most southern village in Germany, a farming community which became a tourist destination thanks to the mountains and with the first concentration camp of Dachau close by. As such, this detailed look at what happened from the end of the First World War to the devastation of the end of the Second World War gives the reader a very personal view of events from a number of the village’s inhabitants. By putting one village under the microscope, our new book, A Village in the Third Reich, aims to contribute in some small way to our understanding of Germans’ reactions to Nazi rule. As an Oberstdorf native, co-author Angelika Patel had one motive when beginning to research the town in 2005 with the aim of answering a question: How was this possible? How was it possible that the people of her country—parents and grandparents—dragged the world and itself into a murderous abyss of war and genocide?

She was married to the late Sir John Boyd, a diplomat, and later Master of Churchill College, Cambridge. [8] She lives in London. [9] [1] Works [ edit ] Oberstdorf, despite its remoteness, was by no means isolated from the war. Not only did the villagers receive firsthand news of conditions—and atrocities—on the various battlefronts from their soldiers returning home on leave, but Dachau sub-camps and forced labor camps were also located close by. Before the Nazis ramped up their persecution of Europe’s Jews in the early 1940s, Dachau mainly housed prisoners who had told anti-regime jokes, made “defeatist” war comments or illegally slaughtered farm animals. Today the only visible scars of the war and the Nazi years can be found in the memorial chapel, where the names of the 286 Oberstdorfers killed in the Second World War are carved in stone. Some families never forgave their neighbours for what happened, while others tried to forget. But what cannot be seen is the invisible scars of the Third Reich which will always remain part of the village’s history. Dirda, Michael (29 August 2018). "Nazi Germany as a travel destination: A new book explores how Hitler duped tourists". The Washington Post . Retrieved 15 December 2022. 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.Today Oberstdorf is a destination village for those who love alpine and winter sports in winter and mountain climbing in summer. It is the southernmost village in Germany and one of its highest towns, with the next stop being Austria. Before tourism arrived in the nineteenth century the village subsisted on farming. Fascinating... You'll learn more about the psychological workings of Nazism by reading this superbly researched chronicle... than you will by reading a shelf of wider-canvas volumes on the rise of Nazism.'Daily Mail