A Village in the Third Reich: How Ordinary Lives Were Transformed By the Rise of Fascism – from the author of Sunday Times bestseller Travellers in the Third Reich

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The reviews and comments posted on this site reflect the opinions of individual posters and do not reflect the views of Cannonball Read. Julia Boyd’s books give a refreshing and very different insight into ordinary Germans and their lifestyle. In 1933, 52% voted for the Nazis and a staggering 98,5 % voted in favour of the Austrian Anschluss in 1938.

Hitler had stated, in a speech, that it would benefit the German people if something like eighty thousand of the million or so babies which were born in the Reich each year were to die. Six weeks into the war, amid the drumbeat of disinformation, state-run polling agency results have pointed to a surge of support for Putin. For a village like Oberstdorf it was a devastating piece of legislation, potentially sweeping away generations of tradition and subtle social contact. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CERV. He adored famous First World War veterans such as Ernst Jünger, whose memoir Storm of Steel he had borrowed from the village library.Disturbing, moving, from the trivial to the tragic, these personal stories and eyewitness account tell a story of Nazi Germany as never before. Boyd finds examples of humanity, sometimes in the most unexpected of places – a case in point is Oberstdorf’s mayor who, despite being a committed Nazi, also protected several Jews living in his village. This is an excellent social history, which makes the reality of those years personal and immediate and shows the discomfort that many had at that time. However, the chapter is mostly devoted to the Nazi’s euthanasia program and child murder for which there already exists an extensive, if gruesome, history. Church groups were outlawed, children were put into 'educational' camps, and the notorious Dachau opened nearby.

The early war victories caused general happiness, but after Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union the atmosphere changed. Reviews Reviews of books, documentaries or other publications that are relevant to the teaching of history. The national NAZI leadership never, in fact, managed to turn even the opinion of some local NAZI officials completely against the strangers in their midst, never mind that of the general population. The study of Julia Boyd, based on earlier work of Angelika Patel, questions how far Nazism and World War II influenced village life.Even technical education, something which Germany had once been very good at, was massively dumbed down in favour of tighter control. It was on the strength of this that I picked up this book, for that is its purpose – seeing how the Third Reich unfolded in an ordinary Bavarian village. After the initial chapters on the rise of Nazism, the book also describes the outbreak of war and the war itself, including poignant stories of Oberstdorf soldiers fighting on the Eastern Front. Julia Boyd previously wrote Travellers in the Third Reich, which described the peculiar society experienced by visitors to Germany in the 30s. Reading about the good, the bad, and seeing the total humanity (or lack thereof) in the individuals within Obertsdorf and the surrounding area was enlightening.