Travellers in the Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism Through the Eyes of Everyday People

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This book has stories from a diverse range of people, schoolchildren, musicians, tourist and the political classes that were in and travelling through Germany in the 1930’s. At the time there was a certain amount of complacency as to what was happening there, but with hindsight it is easy to see the way things were going, the secret war preparations, buses that could be converted into armed troop carriers, arrests and the terrifying events that were unfolding if they had taken a few moments to look beyond the veneer. It is the human angle that makes this such a fascinating book, the family from Bournemouth on holiday who bump into Hitler whilst on a walk and take a snap, the couple who are moved to take the disabled child of a Jewish mother out of the country to give her a chance of life and two lads realising that they were cycling very close to the concentration camp of Dachau by accident. It is a fascinating book, full of detail on a country that stepped into the abyss and almost took the whole of Europe with it. There are echoes in here that have a resonance today and we would be wise to remember. Julia Boyd’s Travellers in the Third Reich is among six short listed books in the popular history section of the Italian Acqui History Prize .

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.After gaining political power, it didn’t take long for him to seize total control and begin to roll out the nationalist policies across the country. The people that were drawn to Germany at this time came from all walks of life and saw the way that it was changing, but there were glimpses of the persecution that was starting to happen across the country as the vision of the Aryan ideal was implemented. The Olympics were the point where the Third Reich could showcase itself on the world stage and athletes and visitors where shown a sanitised country. Those that managed to peer behind the scenes though, were startled and horrified by what they saw. Witness the rise of the Third Reich through the perspective of outsiders – extraordinary tales from visitors and travellers drawn to the ‘New Germany’ of the 1930s.

The book has a wide range of viewpoints; academics, oversea students, members of the British aristocracy, diplomats, journalists, politicians, and ordinary travellers, are all represented. There are those who, like Unity Mitford, staked out Hitler and infiltrated his inner circle out of fanaticism, through Virginia and Leonard Woolf, who were unimpressed, to those who immediately spotted the danger of the emerging National Socialist Party and those who, without the benefit of hindsight, were unquestioning and uncritical - even when visiting book burnings and labour camps. Persuasive propaganda and the distortion of truth, or simple politeness, led to some visitors remaining uncritical of a country not their own. Winners will be announced at a ceremony on April 12, the day before the start of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Does the study of normality require justification when the latter coexists with atrocity? Semmens's study of tourism in the Third Reich begins on a defensive note, assuring the reader of the author's sensitivity to 'the enduring dissonance between holidays and horror, vacations and violence, tourism and terror' (p. 2). Yet such a justification is hardly necessary when it is the coexistence of the speakable with the unspeakable which constitutes both one of the fascinations and one of the foundations of the Third Reich. Semmens defends her area of research as providing a 'prism into the regime' and its combination of compulsion and conciliation, coercion and compromise. The author shows that the strength of the regime lay partly in its willingness to countenance such paradoxes, coupled with its sensitivity to the development and expectations of modern consumer culture. The German tourist industry had a similarly paradoxical character, on the one hand permeated by Nazi ideology, on the other, deliberately apparently devoid of it. In her article 'Travel in Merry Germany', the author also argued that 'an overtly Nazified tourist culture explicitly proclaimed the Nazis' racist, nationalist and imperialist aims, while, at the same time, a seemingly 'normal' tourist culture effectively masked them'. ( 1 ) Continuities with pre-Nazi tourist culture were hence not only countenanced but even promoted by a regime eager to present the semblance of a society both permeated but also untouched by Nazification. Tourism in the Third Reich was thus imbued with Nazi content, but appeared also to offer a holiday from it. In the 1930s the most cultured and technologically advanced country in Europe tumbled into the abyss. In this deeply researched book Julia Boyd lets us view Germany's astonishing fall through foreign eyes. Her vivid tapestry of human stories is a delightful, often moving read. It also offers sobering lessons for our own day when strong leaders are again all the rage." After gaining political power, it didn't take long for him to seize total control and begin to roll out the nationalist policies across the country. The people that were drawn to Germany at this time came from all walks of life and saw the way that it was changing, but there were glimpses of the persecution that was starting to happen across the country as the vision of the Aryan ideal was implemented. The Olympics were the point where the Third Reich could showcase itself on the world stage and athletes and visitors where shown a sanitised country. Those that managed to peer behind the scenes though, were startled and horrified by what they saw.

She includes professionals such as diplomats and journalists, famous writers, students and holiday takers and everything in between. Everyone thought Germany was beautiful with its landscapes, music culture and its universities. Very few included significant negative comments. NAZI’s were very good with PR, showing how the country had improved since the war and the draconian policies of the Versailles Treaty. And were they ever good at putting on a show! All that hid the very na