___________ A Waterstones Paperback of the Year 2022 A New Statesman Book of the Year 2022
'Fascinating... You'll learn more about the psychological workings of Nazism by reading this
superbly researched chronicle... than you will by reading a shelf of wider-canvas volumes on
the rise of Nazism.' Daily Mail 'An utterly absorbing insight into the full spectrum of
responses from ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.' The Times 'Boyd is an
outstanding micro-historian.' iNews ___________ Hidden deep in the Bavarian mountains lies
the picturesque village of Oberstdorf - a place where for hundreds of years people lived simple
lives while history was made elsewhere. Yet even this remote idyll could not escape the brutal
iron grip of the Nazi regime. From the author of the Sunday Times bestselling Travellers in
the Third Reich comes A Village in the Third Reich: an extraordinarily intimate portrait of
Germany under Hitler shining a light on the lives of ordinary people. Drawing on personal
archives letters interviews and memoirs it lays bare their brutality and love courage and
weakness action apathy and grief hope pain joy and despair. Within its pages we encounter
people from all walks of life - foresters priests farmers and nuns innkeepers Nazi
officials veterans and party members village councillors mountaineers socialists slave
labourers schoolchildren tourists and aristocrats. We meet the Jews who survived - and those
who didn't the Nazi mayor who tried to shield those persecuted by the regime and a blind boy
whose life was judged 'not worth living'. This is a tale of conflicting loyalties and desires
of shattered dreams - but one in which ultimately human resilience triumphs. These are the
stories of ordinary lives at the crossroads of history. ___ 'Exceptional... Boyd's book
reminds us that even the most brutal regimes cannot extinguish all semblance of human feeling'
Mail on Sunday 'Masterly... [an] important and gripping book... [Boyd is] a leading historian
of human responses in political extremis.' The Oldie 'Gripping... vividly depicted... [a]
humane and richly detailed book' Spectator 'Vivid moving stories leave us asking "What would
I have done?"' Professor David Reynolds author of Island Stories "An absorbing thoroughly
recommended read" Family Tree magazine 'Laying bare the tragedies the compromises the
suffering and the disillusionment. Exemplary microhistory.' Roger Moorehouse author of First
to Fight 'Compelling and evocative' All About History 'The rise of Nazi Germany through the
prism of one small village in Bavaria. [...] Astonishing' Jane Garvey on Fortunately... with Fi
and Jane 'incredibly engaging' History of War magazine 'Intensely detailed exhaustively
researched and rendered in almost cinematographic detail Julia Boyd's A Village In The Third
Reich is deeply evocative redolent of those times and truly revelatory. I learned so much.
This is a book I will need to return to again and again to relearn refresh and remember. A
triumph.' Damien Lewis author of The Flame of Resistance
