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

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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 ] It's a kind of book readers have seen before – "The Coming of the Third Reich ," by Richard Evans, for instance, or "What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany" by Eric Johnson, Karl-Heinz Reuband. Boyd's book distinguishes itself not only for the breadth of its investigation but also for the palpable tone of frustration that runs throughout. Historians are professionally wary of hindsight, and Boyd never blames her subjects for not knowing the future. But even so, her moral outrage is often obvious. When she recounts British academic Philip Conwell-Evans's description of a 1933 Munich book-burning, for instance: “It is hard to understand how an academic like Conwell-Evans (who held a doctorate from Oxford University) could have viewed such barbarism with equanimity. 'I was an interested witness of the burning of the books by the [Königsberg] university,' he wrote, as if commenting on a football match.” In the 1930s the most cultured and technologically advanced country in Europe tumbled into the abyss. In this deeply researched book Julia Boyd lets us view Germany's astonishing fall through foreign eyes. Her vivid tapestry of human stories is a delightful, often moving read. It also offers sobering lessons for our own day when strong leaders are again all the rage” -- Professor David Reynolds, author of The Long Shadow: The Great War and the 20th Century 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.

What was Nazi Germany really like in the run up to the Second World War? Julia Boyd’s painstakingly researched and deeply nuanced book shows how this troubled country appeared to travellers of the 1930s who did not have the benefit of hindsight. A truly fascinating read” -- Keith Lowe, Sunday Times bestselling author of Savage Continent and Inferno a b "Julia Boyd's schedule for LA Times Festival of Books 2019". LA Times Festival of Books . Retrieved 2023-04-13. Anti-Semitism is seldom an issue, probably because, as Boyd notes, it is often shared by other foreigners too. Some foreign visitors who find it offensive, nevertheless often distinguish between the refined “European” Jew and the bad, detestable Jew, who is always from eastern Europe, and hence, though I do not think Boyd comments on it, this fits into a larger framework of racism. Such foreigners fail to notice, until it is too late, that Nazi thugs do not distinguish between these “good” and “bad” Jews.

The Rise of Fascism through the Eyes of Everyday People

Julia Boyd has written what has to be one of the most fascinating books of the using new material for private collections and archives around the world. She also asks the poignant question of without the benefit of hindsight, how do you interpret what’s right in front of your eyes? Clearly not an easy question to answer, but one Julia Boyd sets out to do with Travellers in the Third Reich.

The number of different perspectives is dizzyingly diverse. Indeed sometimes I found it too detailed and repetitive. Much of Boyd’s illuminating, gripping collection of reports by mostly (but not only) Anglophone travellers in Germany between the two world wars covers the Hitler years. 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.Congratulations to Julia Boyd whose Travellers in the Third Reich was a Spectator Book of the Year this week. Like others I have often wondered about where to find the bridge between the atrocious events perpetrated by the Nazi regime and the ordinary people who lived in Germany at the time and who, to greater or lesser extents became complicit in what was going on. The book is very good at describing the spectrum of fears, beliefs, hopes and indifference which allowed the Nazis to stay in power. When it came to the end of the war the propaganda machine which they had lived under for the previous 12 years, they were fearful for their lives. Stories about what the Russians were doing were widespread and all they could do was hope that it would not be the Russians who came. In the end the village surrendered to the French in May 1945, before the Americans took over in the July. Imaginează-ți că mergi în Germania în anii '30 ai secolului trecut. În scop turistic doar, o călătorie pentru propria relaxare, pentru peisaje, pentru cultură, oameni și așa mai departe, adică toate motivele pentru care mergi în vacanță. Și acolo, în timp ce îți savurezi binemeritatul concediu, începi să vezi - sau să auzi - diferite lucruri nelalocul lor: o ură irațională împotriva evreilor, cărți arse în public, un stat militarizat cu un conducător oarecum carismatic pentru publicul larg, care vedea în el un salvator al națiunii. Sigur, ai putea să vezi toate astea, o parte din ele sau pur și simplu să nu sesizezi nimic. Ce ai face, ce ai zice? Ce aș face eu, mă întreb, în asemenea cazuri? Mi-aș vedea mai departe de vacanță dacă aș fi observat lucrurile cu claritatea pe care o avem acum? Greu de răspuns pentru o situație ipotetică. Și sigur că nu putem compara ce era atunci cu prezentul și informațiile pe care le avem acum. Dar dacă? Cât de mult ne pasă de nivelul economic și traiul oamenilor din țările pe care le vizităm? Totuși cred că ajung prea departe cu speculațiile...

Oberstdorf is a beautiful village high up in the Bavarian Alps, a place where for hundreds of years ordinary people lived simple lives while history was made elsewhere. Yet even here, in the farthest corner of Germany, National Socialism sought to control not only people’s lives but also their minds. The book finishes with the collapse of the Third Reich in 1945 and Allied occupation along with the De-Nazification tribunals that very imperfectly attempted to punish the guilty.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. This is a fascinating account of visitors to Germany from after WWI all the way through the Second World War. Indeed it is interesting to note that the hospitality industry was trying to entice overseas tourists immediately after the ending of hostilities in 1919. Also, that while British and American visitors were generally welcomed, the French were definitely not. The book in general was below my expectations but its accessible, non-academic prose reads like a novel with some interesting characters and anecdotes. I recommend two better books if you really want to have an idea about how it was like to live in the Third Reich: To a younger generation it seems incomprehensible that after the tragic Great War people and political leaders allowed themselves to march into the abyss again. Julia Boyd’s book, drawing on wide experience and forensic research, seeks to answer some of these questions." Some things that were often noticed by travelers: NAZI’s had improved the economy and were loved by the masses for that. Youth were particularly caught up with the movement. NAZI’s were great at spectacles such as the Olympics, rallies and torchlight parades. Many travelers noted that the NAZI’s emphasized the need for annexing (taking) lands around them that had once been part of Germany or which now were seen as places needed as a buffer to protect the safety of the Fatherland. Sounds like a familiar old excuse today.

These are the accidental eyewitnesses to history. Disturbing, absurd, moving, and ranging from the deeply trivial to the deeply tragic, their tales give a fresh insight into the complexities of the Third Reich, its paradoxes and its ultimate destruction.This is a wonderful micro-history of the Third Reich using the village as an exemplar of the ordinary German in those fateful years. It brings to life some of the difficulties for some and how easy it was for others to do nothing. Everybody made their decision which is clear and had to live with it. Added to this was the fact that many in Europe and American disliked the French more than the Germans. The French were seen as arrogant, chaotic, and ungrateful for the aid they had been given in the First World War, and were thought to have been the driving force behind the harsh peace terms that devastated Germany. For many people it seemed obvious that the future of Europe lay with the alliance of the Germanic peoples in Britain and Germany, an alliance which would dominate the rest of the world politically, economically, and militarily. British Admiral Sir Barry Domvile (whose support for Hitler’s regime was so enthusiastic the British government interned him at the start of the war), was a true believer in this kind of alliance, and a visit to Germany “confirmed a deep belief, shared by so many men who had fought in the Great War, that without a strong alliance between England and Germany there could be no world peace.” (p. 181) Anii au trecut, Germania a reușit să se stabilizeze și la putere venise partidul naționalist-socialist, cu Hitler în frunte. Străinii nu mai veneau doar ca să vadă o țară bucolică, ci și pentru studii și mediul cultural. Însă totul era înșelător, iluzia s-a spart destul de repede odată cu Anchluss, anexarea Austriei. Cu toate astea, oamenii si-ai văzut mai departe de viețile și concediile lor. Liniște a fost și la anexarea Cehoslovaciei. Abia în Noaptea de Cristal, când sunetul vitrinelor sparte, a strigătelor de spaimă și durere, când persecuția evreilor a devenit evidentă, când nu se mai puteau închide ochii la uciderea acestora, la existența lagărelor în care erau închiși, abia atunci situația reală a început să devină zgomotoasă.