A Village in the Third Reich

"A remarkable moral drama, a miniature epic that is subtle in characterization, gripping in detail, and shocking in its brutal ordinariness.”

 

"An illuminating look at Hitler's rise to power and how it played out in one Bavarian village. The prose is clear, confident and measured, connecting national events to Oberstdorf as often as possible, a device that never feels forced — only human." 

 

"How a storied, seemingly idyllic Bavarian town gradually embraced Nazi ideology...A thorough, chilling social history of how Nazi ideology took hold at the local level."

"This richly textured chronicle offers valuable insights into 'the most far-reaching tragedy in human history.'" 

"It is the tales of day-to-day life and struggles of the villagers that help the reader understand how people either wholeheartedly believed the Nazis’ agenda, resisted it, or pretended to follow in order to get by."

Praise for Travelers in the Third Reich:

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History

"A well-conceived study of a little-known corner of history."

"While there have been countless books written about the rise of Hitler, Travelers in the Third Reich relies on firsthand accounts by foreigners to convey what it was really like to visit, study or vacation in Germany during the 1920s and ’30s. As Julia Boyd emphasizes, too many people allowed reverence for a nation’s glorious past to warp their judgment about its morally repugnant present. That’s a lesson still worth thinking about.”

"Conveys how challenging it must have been to forecast the dimensions of the impending tragedy. Boyd notes that, in 1936, even so astute and well-intentioned an observer as the African-American educator W.E. B. DuBois—who should have been particularly attuned to race-baiting and prejudice—stopped short of demonizing the regime.”

"Far fewer travelers were free to move about the country during those years, and the accounts they left behind are, as Boyd puts it, ‘both horrifying and touching.’ Those terms apply intensely to the whole of Travelers in the Third Reich, and readers will likely share Boyd's quiet outrage that more Germans didn't see?or weren't willing to admit?what was happening right in front of their eyes."

"This fresh, surprising perspective on how Nazi Germany was seen at the time will appeal to anyone looking for a new angle on that historical moment."

"Boyd's fresh and instructive look at 1930s Germany as described in contemporaneous travel narratives reveals a tourist destination that continued to attract visitors even as the true intentions of the Nazis became obvious."

"Extraordinary and absorbing. These firsthand glimpses of a dark time in Germany show us the complexity of appearances, and Boyd’s book should be widely read."

 
Advance praise from England for A Village in the Third Reich:

“Gripping. Vividly depicted. A humane and richly detailed book.”

"These vivid, moving stories leave us asking, 'What would I have done?’"

"An utterly absorbing insight into the full spectrum of responses from ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.”

"Exceptional. Boyd's book reminds us that even the most brutal regimes cannot extinguish all semblance of human feeling.”

"Laying bare the tragedies, the compromises, the suffering and the disillusionment. Exemplary micro history.”

"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.”

"An illuminating look at Hitler's rise to power and how it played out in one Bavarian village. The prose is clear, confident and measured, connecting national events to Oberstdorf as often as possible, a device that never feels forced — only human." 

 

"A remarkable moral drama, a miniature epic that is subtle in characterization, gripping in detail, and shocking in its brutal ordinariness.”

 

"This richly textured chronicle offers valuable insights into 'the most far-reaching tragedy in human history.'" 

"It is the tales of day-to-day life and struggles of the villagers that help the reader understand how people either wholeheartedly believed the Nazis’ agenda, resisted it, or pretended to follow in order to get by."

"How a storied, seemingly idyllic Bavarian town gradually embraced Nazi ideology...A thorough, chilling social history of how Nazi ideology took hold at the local level."