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

Historian Boyd (Travelers in the Third Reich) and Patel, a native of Oberstdorf, Germany, recount in this nuanced history how the rise and fall of Nazi Germany affected Patel’s hometown. Located in the Allgäu, a region in Swabia known for “the beauty of its mountains and the toughness of its people,” Oberstdorf is the southernmost village in Germany. Detailing the “swift and ruthless” transition from the political tumult of Weimar Germany to Nazi totalitarianism, the authors note that by 1934, the atmosphere in Oberstdorf “had changed profoundly. Shop windows that had once displayed quilts now flaunted swastikas and brown shirts.” A turning point came in 1940, when Hitler’s sinister new “racial hygiene” law led to the euthanization of a blind 19-year-old whose family who had been in Oberstdorf for generations. By 1943, Oberstdorf was overrun with evacuees from Allied bombing campaigns, refugees from the Soviet invasion, and wounded soldiers, putting a heavy strain on the village’s infrastructure and food supplies. While crediting Mayor Ludwig Fink, a “moderate Nazi,” and others with shielding local Jews and Jewish refugees from persecution, Boyd and Patel pose difficult questions about ordinary Germans’ complicity in the horrors of the Holocaust. Making excellent use of Oberstdorf’s “particularly well-maintained” archive, this richly textured chronicle offers valuable insights into “the most far-reaching tragedy in human history.” (Apr.)