HOLIDAYING IN NAZI GERMANY
NEIL CLARK delves through a rare and fascinating travel brochure published in 1939 that gave British holidaymakers advice on going to the Third Reich
THE aim of this booklet is to persuade you to visit Germany. Nothing remarkable about that, you might think. With its lovely forests, beautiful mountains and historic cities, Germany is a nice country to visit. But the date of the booklet gives one a jolt. It’s 1939 – the year the Second World War started.
I’ve got a rare copy of the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) Germany via Harwich travel guide, written by Bernard Newman, urging people to take their holidays in Nazi Germany. Yes, that’s right, Nazi Germany.
“Make 1939 the year you visit Germany” is probably not the best piece of travel advice that has ever been given. But even so, the LNER booklet is a fascinating read. Here are some extracts: GERMANY IS THE BEST I have visited all the countries of Europe but each year I return to Germany. There is no country that can excel its vast variety of interests – the beauties of mountain and vale, the reminders of history. GETTING THERE The complications of foreign travel have been grossly exaggerated. You just go to the booking office at Liverpool Street and say “Berlin” and whether your choice is for the Harwich-Flushing day service or the Hook of Holland night route, your ticket will be forthcoming as quickly as one to Yarmouth. CHEAP AND CLEAN PUBLIC TRANSPORT Visitors to Germany may travel over the railways at a 60 per cent reduction on the ordinary fares. These tickets will be on issue daily at the travel bureaux until the end of 1939. German trains are comfortable and clean. The feeding is excellent and comparatively inexpensive. On every station of size will be food wagons with sandwiches and hot sausages. There may be a shortage of butter in Germany occasionally but you won’t notice it. FRIENDLY LOCALS In Germany travel is easy because of the helpful friendliness of the people and the fact that English is so widely spoken. MARCHING AND SINGING Marching about in columns of four is no modern innovation in Germany. For generations, the favourite holiday occupation of German youths and maidens has been to form a party, go to the countryside, and tramp in disciplined ranks singing. Listen as their song floats towards you, for it comes from their hearts. RULES AND REGULATIONS Stories of German regimentation have been much over-emphasised but in Germany a rule is a rule. This is not always appreciated by the casual individualism bred and developed in our isles. A German is brought up differently: regulations are not made for fun and if he is instructed to keep off the grass he keeps off the grass. THE GERMANS AT PLAY At any of the German Baltic resorts you may enjoy an economical vacation. What is more important, you will see the German family on holiday. The German on holiday is interesting. Apart from outrageous taste in beach pyjamas, he is very like the average Englishman on holiday – except that he is more easily entertained. MONEY MATTERS Travel marks are ordinary Reichsmarks obtainable by cashing Travel Mark Cheques at banks and exchange offices in Germany. They can only be used within Germany for personal travelling, hotel, restaurant and other daily expenses. The rate is about RM20 to the pound sterling. A sum of RM50 per day per person can be cashed in Germany. VISITING BERCHTESGADEN Next come to a resort which has now a double fame – Berchtesgaden, the mountain home of Herr Hitler. You may gaze – at a suitable distance – at the Führer‘s chalet. Far more interesting is to gaze at the faces of the Germans about you who have come to stare at Hitler’s home. DRIVING ON THE AUTOBAHNS If you are a motorist you will, of course, want to see one of the new motor roads, among Europe’s modern wonders. The first-class ordinary roads are also very good, but on lower grades Britain scores WILLKOMMEN! A poster advertising the LNER’s train services to Germany via Harwich and, right, a lakeside beach in Berlin during the 1930s heavily. I should say that on average British roads are easily superior to German. A NIGHT OUT IN BERLIN If you have made a full day of sight-seeing, come for the evening to a café or beer garden. It is not essential to drink beer, by the way, ice-cold lemonade is quite a cult in modern Germany. Incidentally, it is quite correct to go up to a strange girl, bow, and ask her to dance. If a strange German invites an English girl to dance, he is complimenting, not insulting her.
The booklet includes a Time Table Of Summer Services to Germany via Harwich. It informs us that there is a nightly sailing from Harwich to Zeebrugge in Belgium, running from June 30, until September 9. “The outward journey (to western Germany) is easy” wrote Newman. “Leaving Liverpool Street at 8.15pm and crossing by the very comfortable Harwich-Hook of Holland service, you are in Hanover the following afternoon.”
Reading the guide makes Germany in 1939 sound idyllic but the police state was in full operation and away from tourist areas, opponents of the Nazis were in prison or in concentration camps. “Racial Purity” laws were in force and about 300,000 Jewish people had already emigrated.
But what happened to Britons who ignored the political situation and went on holiday to Germany in the summer of 1939?
Visiting the country became increasingly popular for people from the British Isles in the 1930s. In 1937 almost 20 per cent of visitors to Nazi Germany came from Britain or Ireland. However in 1938, due to rising international tensions, numbers dropped. In her book Seeing Hitler’s Germany: Tourism In The Third Reich, Kristin Semmens reveals that the London branch of Germany’s Tourist Board was given an extra 100,000 Reichsmarks “to combat falling visitor numbers”.
Student William Woodruff wrote of the “wonderful summer” he spent in Bonn in 1939. But with war looming, on August 28, the Harwich-Zeebrugge boat service was suspended.
On September 1, Germany invaded Poland and two days later Britain and France were at war with Germany. British nationals still in Germany had to leave or face the prospect of internment. Thousands of Britons who were living in Germany in 1939, and in countries later occupied by the Nazis, were interned, as were Germans who lived in Britain.
The final paragraph of Germany via Harwich sounds very optimistic: “It is desirable, when a country is under discussion, that we should go and see for ourselves. Never in history was friendly feeling between our two peoples so important as it is today. That is why I’m persuading British people to go to Germany: and why at the same time and by similar methods, I am persuading German people to come to Britain.”
Bernard Newman, who recommended a trip to Ober-ammergau in 1940 to see “the 300-year-old Passion Play”, could not have foreseen that in that same year, German air forces would be attacking Britain. And that holidays to Germany would be off the agenda for some time to come.