HITLER’S BIGGEST FANS? THE VILLAGE POSTIES

A Village In The Third Reich Julia Boyd Elliott & Thompson £25

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What did ordinary Germans really think of Adolf Hitler, and how strongly were they committed to Nazi ideology? These are questions that many historians have addressed, but usually in general terms. Julia Boyd’s exceptional new book gets to the root of the matter by focusing exclusively on the inhabitants of one small village.

The village in question, Oberstdorf, is a postcard-perfect holiday resort high up in the Bavarian Alps. A community of farmers and small-business people, they were typically conservative in their politics, Catholic in their religion and traditional in their views. A few embraced Nazism enthusiastically from the start (including, curiously, a high proportion of postal workers), but they didn’t approve of Hitler’s race laws, if only because they recognised the importance of wealthy Jewish visitors to the all-important tourist trade. However, a majority do seem to have regarded Hitler as the strong charismatic leader who would restore national pride and wipe away the stain of defeat in the First World War.

Germany’s early victories were greeted with general rejoicing, but even as the war drew to a disastrous close there were fanatics whose faith in the Führer remained unshaken. At the same time, some individuals had engaged in covert opposition from the very beginning, despite the risks, but while these people inevitably emerge as the true heroes and heroines of the story, the picture Boyd paints is not all black and white. Oberstdorf’s mayor, Ludwig Fink, although a devoted Nazi, went out of his way to help locals who had fallen foul of the regime and even turned a blind eye to Jews sheltering in the village.

Men like Fink were rare, but Boyd’s book does remind us that even the most brutal regimes cannot extinguish all semblance of human feeling. That at least may be something to cling to in a world where so many of the lessons of history seem to have been forgotten.