An intimate portrait of German life during World War II, shining a light on ordinary people living in a picturesque Bavarian village under Nazi rule, from a past winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History.

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 international bestseller Travelers in the Third Reich comes A Village in the Third Reich, 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.

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. Angelika Patel was born into an old Oberstdorf family. She studied History and German Literature before taking an MBA at INSEAD at Fontainebleu. She is the author of Ein Dorf im Spiegel seiner Zeit (A Village in the Mirror of its Time): Oberstdorf 1918–1952. She lives in London and Oberstdorf.

"This richly textured chronicle offers valuable insights into 'the most far-reaching tragedy in human history.'"
— Publishers Weekly

"It is the tales of day-to-day life and struggles of the villagers that help the reader understand how people either wholeheartedly believed the Nazis’ agenda, resisted it, or pretended to follow in order to get by."
— Booklist

"How a storied, seemingly idyllic Bavarian town gradually embraced Nazi ideology...A thorough, chilling social history of how Nazi ideology took hold at the local level."
— Kirkus Reviews

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