Travelers in the Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism: 1919-1945

by Julia Boyd

Overview

This fascinating and shocking history of the rise of the Nazis draws together a multitude of expatriate voices—even Charles Lindbergh and Samuel Beckett—into a powerful narrative charting this extraordinary phenomenon.

Without the benefit of hindsight, how do you interpret what’s right in front of your eyes?

The events that took place in Germany between 1919 and 1945 were dramatic and terrible, but there were also moments of confusion, of doubt—even of hope. How easy was it to know what was actually going on, to grasp the essence of National Socialism, to remain untouched by the propaganda, or predict the Holocaust?

Travelers in the Third Reich is an extraordinary history of the rise of the Nazis based on fascinating first-hand accounts, drawing together a multitude of voices and stories, including politicians, musicians, diplomats, schoolchildren, communists, scholars, athletes, poets, fascists, artists, tourists, and even celebrities like Charles Lindbergh and Samuel Beckett. Their experiences create a remarkable three-dimensional picture of Germany under Hitler—one so palpable that the reader will feel, hear, even breathe the atmosphere.

These are the accidental eyewitnesses to history. Disturbing, absurd, moving, and ranging from the deeply trivial to the deeply tragic, their tales give a fresh insight into the complexities of the Third Reich, its paradoxes, and its ultimate destruction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681777825
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	08/07/2018
Pages:	464
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Julia Boyd is the author of Travelers 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 now lives in London.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Map 10-11

1 Open Wounds 13

2 Deepening Pain 27

3 Sex and Sun 43

4 'The Seething Brew' 61

5 The Noose Tightens 77

6 Monster or Marvel? 93

7 Summer Holidays 111

8 Festivals and Fanfares 127

9 Heiling Hitler 145

10 Old Soldiers 165

11 Literary 'Tourists' 185

12 Snow and Swastikas 207

13 Hitler's Games 223

14 Academic Wasteland 237

15 Dubious Overtures 255

16 Travel Album 273

17 Anschluss 289

18 'Peace' and Shattered Glass 301

19 Countdown to War 317

20 War 335

21 Journey's End 349

Afterword 369

Acknowledgements 375

Bibliography 379

Archives Consulted 391

The Travellers 395

Notes 419

Index 447

Editorial Reviews

06/25/2018
For many foreign visitors, even after 1933, Germany was not “the Third Reich,” but rather a charming country with beautiful landscapes, women dressed in dirndls, and rustic gothic villages. To what extent could they see the horrors behind the tourist facade? British writer Boyd (A Dance with the Dragon: The Vanished World of Peking’s Foreign Colony) culls the impressions of nearly 200 short- and long-term travelers, almost all British and American, to examine this question. A few of them were well-known public or cultural figures, such as Charles Lindbergh and Samuel Beckett; most were largely unknown tourists, academics, students, diplomats, businesspeople, and athletes. A significant number were apolitical; a few were taken in by Nazism and Hitler, such as David Lloyd George, the former British prime minister, who called Hitler “the George Washington of Germany.” Boyd uncovers surprising facts, such as that “Dachau had become something of a tourist destination”—visiting diplomats were told the camps were for re-educating “undesirables” and Communists through work, and sometimes shown guards dressed as prisoners—and notes the handful of visitors who worked to aid Jews, such as the opera-loving sisters Ida and Louise Cook. Boyd offers no overriding thesis; instead, her book is a mosaic of impressions. This fresh, surprising perspective on how Nazi Germany was seen at the time will appeal to anyone looking for a new angle on that historical moment. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"While there have been countless books written about the rise of Hitler, Travelers in the Third Reich relies on firsthand accounts by foreigners to convey what it was really like to visit, study or vacation in Germany during the 1920s and ’30s. As Julia Boyd emphasizes, too many people allowed reverence for a nation’s glorious past to warp their judgment about its morally repugnant present. That’s a lesson still worth thinking about."

The Washington Post - Michael Dirda

"Far fewer travelers were free to move about the country during those years, and the accounts they left behind are, as Boyd puts it, ‘both horrifying and touching.’ Those terms apply intensely to the whole of Travelers in the Third Reich, and readers will likely share Boyd's quiet outrage that more Germans didn't see – or weren't willing to admit – what was happening right in front of their eyes."

Christian Science Monitor

"Conveys how challenging it must have been to forecast the dimensions of the impending tragedy. Boyd notes that, in 1936, even so astute and well-intentioned an observer as the African-American educator W.E. B. DuBois — who should have been particularly attuned to race-baiting and prejudice — stopped short of demonizing the regime. Instead, in common with the European political leaders who failed to arrest Hitler’s momentum, he temporized. ‘It is extremely difficult,’ he wrote, ‘to express an opinion about Germany today which is true in all respects without numerous modifications and explanations."

Boston Globe

"Extraordinary and absorbing. These firsthand glimpses of a dark time in Germany show us the complexity of appearances, and Boyd’s book should be widely read."

BookPage

"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. It also offers sobering lessons for our own day when strong leaders are again all the rage."

Professor David Reynolds

"A compelling historical narrative. [Boyd] lets her voices, skilfully orchestrated, speak for themselves, which they do with great eloquence."

The Daily Telegraph (UK)

"Boyd's fresh and instructive look at 1930s Germany as described in contemporaneous travel narratives reveals a tourist destination that continued to attract visitors even as the true intentions of the Nazis became obvious."

Booklist

While there have been countless books written about the rise of Hitler, Travelers in the Third Reich relies on firsthand accounts by foreigners to convey what it was really like to visit, study or vacation in Germany during the 1920s and ’30s. As Julia Boyd emphasizes, too many people allowed reverence for a nation’s glorious past to warp their judgment about its morally repugnant present. That’s a lesson still worth thinking about.

Michael Dirda - The Washington Post

"Boyd's fresh and instructive look at 1930s Germany as described in contemporaneous travel narratives reveals a tourist destination that continued to attract visitors even as the true intentions of the Nazis became obvious."

Booklist

A compelling historical narrative. [Boyd] lets her voices, skilfully orchestrated, speak for themselves, which they do with great eloquence.

The Daily Telegraph (U.K.)

08/01/2018
Looking back at the Nazis' rise to power before World War II, we wonder how they were allowed to build up to such terrible acts without much censure or resistance. Even outsiders, such as the many British and American tourists, students, businessmen, government officials, and artists who traveled to Germany, seemed to have turned a blind eye. It's their thoughts, feelings, and actions that Boyd (A Dance with the Dragon) brings to life, through their correspondence and other records, to offer an understanding of how U.S. and British travelers viewed Germany and to answer successfully the question of why even those who witnessed German propaganda often failed to outright condemn the actions of Hitler's regime. The author explores the feelings of kinship U.S. and British citizens felt toward Germans during and after World War I; their love of German culture and countryside; how confusing it was to interpret propaganda and define fascism; and the disbelief that the warm, hospitable Germans they met were capable of such heinous acts. VERDICT This compelling, intricate, and meticulous work of how outsiders viewed Hitler's Germany will appeal to readers of World War II and 20th-century history.—Heidi Uphoff, Sandia National Laboratories, NM

Library Journal

2018-05-15
Nazi Germany, tourist destination? Yes, by this account—and, by 1937, a destination of choice for a half-million Americans per year."You did not have to be pro-Nazi to marvel at the green countryside, the vineyard-flanked rivers or the orchards stretching as far as the eye could see." So notes Boyd (The Excellent Doctor Blackwell: The Life of the First Woman Physician, 2013, etc.) of the vast, lucrative trade marketing Germany under the Third Reich to non-German visitors, a trade that had begun in earnest immediately after World War I ended. It helped to hold those views or at least believe, as did British aristocrat Violet Bonham Carter, that "the reparations policy insisted on by France…was morally unjust and politically mad." Carter was traveling to a grimy, still-staggering Germany in 1923, and during that and the following decade, many Britons and Americans came to Germany to enjoy the bohemian liberties depicted by Christopher Isherwood in the stories that would underlie the stage play Cabaret. Some of those Britons took pains to avoid dreadful middle-class people, "however nice they are," and to stay among "one's own kind," as another aristocrat wrote to the folks back home. Some of Boyd's portraits involve men and women whose firsthand views of Germany would harden their opposition to Nazism—including, surprisingly, the poet and playwright Samuel Beckett, who endured "freezing weather, lack of money, rain and leaking shoes" to report on the place with much less enthusiasm than Graham Greene. Boyd also adds a dimension to a well-known tale by noting Hitler's famed refusal to shake the hand of African-American athlete Jesse Owens—but adding that ordinary Germans in the Olympic crowd "took the great black athlete to their hearts, chanting ‘Oh-vens! Oh-vens' whenever he appeared." Even so, Boyd notes the still greater popular enthusiasm for the regime, concluding that returning visitors would have had no illusions, if honest with themselves, about the Nazis' true colors.A well-conceived study of a little-known corner of history.

Kirkus Reviews