Review Summaries

• Readers value the way a large body of primary material is shaped into a readable narrative. Many note that the blend of travel writing and grave history makes the book unsettling in its attention to unknowing complicity.

• Critical response has emphasized how fragmentary testimony from travelers reveals the atmosphere of the period and the agency of ordinary people who helped sustain the home front.

Reviews

• Well packaged, quickly received. Very good book...I have not been able to put it down. A well-written warning from the past. It reads so expertly: like it’s happening today!

• Germany's Third Reich is surely the most documented period in modern history. Most books come at it from military and political perspectives, often in huge, dry tomes that are a struggle to read. Julia Boyd offers a breathtakingly new study of the period when Germany descended into darkness with the rise of Nazism. Her book is based around first hand accounts of people who were in Germany at the time, from the last days of the Weimar Republic through to the Second World War. What makes this book special is the objective way in which it examines what happened in the country. Some travellers in Germany at the time thought some of the changes Hitler brought about were positive, others could already see bad times ahead. Presented clearly and without judging with hindsight (and good history never judges, merely reports and analyses what happened) - the book gives a vivid impression of what it was like to be in the country during a time of dangerous change. As a social history of the time it explores the lived experience in a way most history books never achieve. It's well-written, clear, and in its own understated way is one of the best books you could ever read about this shocking period in modern history. It is also a warning that democratic societies and freedoms people take for granted can be lost in a heartbeat. A compelling, important book to read.

• These 2 books are extremely well researched and written. I think her other book that grew out of this one is even better If you believe it cannot happen here read it. Watching Trump and reading this you feel he along with Orban are following. similar path to a modern dictatorship.

• I literally stumbled across this book whilst browsing for fiction. However it fell into my current knowledge search and welcomely so. Born in 1949 what I learnt of the 1930s was little from immediate family and nothing from formal education but it of course influenced my early life in post war England. An uncle who'd worked with the French resistance during the war and had a Nazi dagger as a trophy above his desk at home would tell all including Germans, "the only good German is a dead one!". We were always shocked by this as we all knew Germans in the UK both pre war refugees (Jewish or otherwise) and some post war brides... including of course celebrities notably Elizabeth Schwarzkopf...and others such as Karajan etc. Also as the book indicates the relationship between Germany & the UK is long and complicated. It was thus fascinating to have this collection of first hand observations on the Third Reich and in something of a page turner presentation. The research is in itself stunning and the first hand accounts especially the final chapter revealing. Although I already knew about food rationing from another 1939 non -fiction book... but that food was short pre war and during war was something that I'd been told wasn't the case by a woman who grew up in wartime Germany. It would seem she must have lived on a farm as the claim she was only sort of food after the war doesn't compute with these and official accounts. It is for such reasons alone this book is so fascinating, informative and instructive on the knowledge basis that existed during the 1930s on what was in fact happening in Germany and elsewhere. I can't recommend this book enough for the insight it brings on the Third Reich at ground level, the reason it succeeded initially and the fear grip it exerted on its people throughout. That it courted and dazzled it's visitors into the bargain is also clear. Just as Mussolini was remembered for getting the trains to run on time, full employment including the youth of any Western style democracy is something hard to achieve at anytime...just one thing that caught the eye of many travellers the author cites. Gripping and a must read as I believe W. Churchill's part 1 of his WWII history is to understanding this period of English and German history.

• Libro molto interessante, di cui esiste l'edizione italiana, che affronta un tema e un periodo cruciale del XX secolo - la storia della Germania dal 1919 al 1945 - con un taglio inusuale. Come è andata a finire, lo sappiamo tutti. Ma all'epoca quanti sapevano come sarebbe andata, o almeno lo intuivano ? La parola viene data ai viaggiatori dell'epoca, o agli stranieri che si trovavano in Germania per ragioni personali, di lavoro o di studio. Considerato che all'epoca viaggiare era un lusso riservato a pochi e il tedesco era molto poco conosciuto dai più, la "gente" narrante è nella sostanza un' "elite" colta e benestante. E questo forse è l'aspetto che maggiormente colpisce: i resoconti e i giudizi sulla Germania nazionalsocialista non provengono da gitanti sprovveduti, ma sovente da diplomatici, scrittori, intellettuali e artisti. Ciò che li divide è ovviamente il loro orientamento politico: si va dalla famigerata Unity Mitford, britannica ma ardente filonazista, a Charlie Chaplin, il che porta ovviamente a scegliere di non vedere o di vedere tante cose, dalla Notte dei Cristalli a una crescente violenza quotidiana. Ciò che accomuna questi testimoni del loro tempo è invece una perdurante fascinazione per la Germania di "prima", quella di Bach, Goethe, Schiller, Kant e nutrita compagnia di spiriti illustri, nonchè per la bellezza dei paesaggi, la cortesia degli abitanti e le magnifiche città medievali che erano Francoforte, Amburgo, Colonia, Lipsia, prima di essere ridotte a cumuli di macerie fumanti e di cadaveri. Difficile sfuggire, leggendo il libro, alla straziante consapevolezza di leggere quello che potrebbe essere un resoconto su larga scala di un viaggio a Pompei o Ercolano prima dell'eruzione. Poi le reazioni potranno spaziare dal "poveretti, che orrore" al "se la sono cercata", e se si pensa a come i nazisti avevano ridotto città ugualmente magnifiche come Varsavia o Budapest (a Praga non fecero fortunatamente in tempo) il giudizio resta sospeso. E che dire dei nostri viaggiatori ? Che a loro favore milita un fatto, ovvero che nel 1936, per dire l'anno di quella macchina propagandistica perfetta che furono le Olimpiadi di Berlino, tutto era già sulla tavola, ma chi davvero avrebbe potuto immaginare Auschwitz, la Bomba H, città intere rase al suolo, l'imbarbarimento della "vecchia Europa", preludio alla sua sparizione tra il Piano Marshall e la Cortina di Ferro ? In fondo, i nostri viaggiatori erano già figli di un'epoca trascorsa, ma di certo non potevano saperlo: toccherà anche a noi ?

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