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

by Julia Boyd

Despite having heard in Berlin youths cry out ‘Juden verrecke [death to the Jews]’, Wrench returned to England convinced that the German government was on the brink of dropping its anti-Semitic crusade. ‘The best service we can do the Jews in Germany’, he argued, ‘is to try and maintain an impartial attitude towards Germany and show that we are really desirous of understanding German aspirations.’

The ceremonial burning of books in Germany’s thirty-odd university towns laid bare Nazi intentions, recalling Heinrich Heine’s famous words: ’Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen [Where they burn books, they will end by burning people].’

As for reports of people taken from their homes in the middle of the night, of torture and intimidation, many foreigners simply looked the other way, hoping that if they focused on the positive in National Socialism, the nastier aspects might soon disappear. It was much harder to ignore the persecution of Jews. But then many foreign visitors to Germany in 1933 were themselves anti-Semitic, if only casually. To them, the discomfiture of a few Jews seemed a small price for the restoration of a great nation – a nation, moreover, that was Europe’s chief bulwark against communism.

The willingness of the middle class to accept the extra burdens imposed on them by the Nazis surprised him. Women too seemed happy to give up the freedoms that they had so recently won under Weimar. Not only were they now discouraged from working, but they were also heavily censured if they smoked in public or wore makeup.

Archie Williams, the African-American 400 metres gold-medallist, made plain the underlying point in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. ‘When I came home, somebody asked me “How did those dirty Nazis treat you?” I replied that I didn’t see any dirty Nazis, just a lot of nice German people. And I didn’t have to ride in the back of the bus.’