A Village in the Third Reich: How Ordinary Lives Were Transformed By the Rise of Fascism

Praise for Travellers in the Third Reich  ‘Compelling’Daily Telegraph     ‘Thought-provoking reading’Literary Review  ‘Fascinating’Spectator    ‘Absorbing and stimulating’ Mail on Sunday  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.   By putting one village under the microscope, this book evocatively portrays the momentous period of Nazism in Germany. Why did Germans respond to Hitler in the manner that they did? How did their attitudes change as the war progressed? And when all hope was gone and their country lay in ruins, how did they pick themselves up and start again?  Drawing on archive material, letters, interviews and memoirs, A Village in the Third Reich is an extraordinarily intimate portrait of Germany under Hitler, of the descent into totalitarianism and of the tragedies that befell all of those touched by Nazism. In its pages 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 thought ‘not worth living’. It is a tale of conflicting loyalties and desires, of shattered dreams, despair and destruction. But if this is primarily a tale of political tragedy, it is also one in which human resilience triumphs. These are the stories of ordinary lives at the crossroads of history. 

About the Author :
Julia Boyd is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller Travellers in the Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism through the Eyes of Everyday People. Her previous books include A Dance with the Dragon: The Vanished World of Peking's Foreign Colony, The Excellent Doctor Blackwell: The Life of the First Woman Physician and Hannah Riddell: An Englishwoman in Japan. As the widow of a former diplomat, she lived in Germany from 1977 to 1981. She lives in London. Angelika Patel was born into an old Oberstdorf family. She studied History and German Literature before taking an MBA at INSEAD at Fontainebleu. She is the author of Ein Dorf im Spiegel seiner Zeit (A Village in the Mirror of its Time): Oberstdorf 1918–1952. She lives in London and Oberstdorf.

Review :
‘A fascinating deep dive into one community as it experiences the rise and fall of Hitler.’ The Times ‘Boyd is an outstanding micro-historian.’ iNews ‘Masterly . . . [Boyd is] a leading historian of human responses in political extremis.’ The Oldie ‘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 ‘Exceptional... Boyd's book reminds us that even the most brutal regimes cannot extinguish all semblance of human feeling' Mail on Sunday ‘Gripping… vividly depicted… [a] humane and richly detailed book’ Spectator ’An absorbing, thoroughly recommended read’ Family Tree magazine ‘Compelling and evocative’ All About History ’The rise of Nazi Germany through the prism of one small village in Bavaria. […] Astonishing’ Jane Garvey on Fortunately… with Fi and Jane ‘incredibly engaging’ History of War magazine