I am reading an interesting book from the history section of Amazon at the moment. It is called “A Village in the Third Reich: How Ordinary Lives Were Transformed By the Rise of Fascism”.
It describes live in one small village in the Alps in southern Germany as Hitler came to power and totalitarianism took root in Germany. It looks at the lives of the ordinary inhabitants of the village of Oberstdorf, with a reliance on historical records, word of mouth accounts, newspaper reports etc.
I have always been fascinated by what Hitler managed to carry out in Germany, especially when I consider my meetings with Germans I have met in my own life.
The Germans I have met have generally been decent individuals with respect for the other person, intelligent, well educated, hardworking and committed to the European project in the form of the European Union.
I have always speculated, however, that the person I meet had a parent or grandparent or uncle or other relation who faithfully served Hitler and his ideology of hatred and war.
And I have wondered why or how that could have happened.
Could it ever happen again? What allowed Hitler to persuade Germans to put him into power and support him so loyally for a period of time?
I hope the book I am reading will give me a sound, accurate insight into those questions by looking at what happened in Oberstdorf, a quiet, rural, Alpine idyll.