We have already seen how Fink helped Sister Biunda and her nuns and how he protected the Jews and other persecuted individuals under his jurisdiction; how he not only helped to ensure that the elderly Emil Schnell was adequately provisioned, but had also warned him of his imminent deportation.

The picture is never black and white and even in a relatively small village there a multiple and nuanced responses to these questions. And so it went on in the village of Oberstdorf throughout the 1930s and 1940s, with the rise and fall of Nazism an undercurrent all along – except it was one that swelled in a way that even a quiet little village couldn’t ignore. It’s a very different perspective which spans a couple of fascinating decades as the aftermath of one war is felt and the build up to the next begins. This richly textured chronicle offers valuable insights into 'the most far-reaching tragedy in human history.One of the major philosophical and moral questions linked to Nazi Germany is how much ordinary people were aware of the injustices suffered by Jews and minorities at the hands of the regime. It’s hard to know where this idea originally came from, but the author’s previous book “Travellers in the Third Reich” makes it clear that Hitler and the other top NAZIs were greatly impressed by the writings and speeches of George Bernard Shaw on the topic.

This is an intriguing document of Social History, detailing the lives of the inhabitants of an idyllic Bavarian tourist resort during the era of Hitler and the Nazi’s rise to power in Germany and the Second World War, including the earliest period of Allied Occupation. Turns out there is, and Julia Boyd is distinguishing herself in a crowded field thanks to her unusual approach to the history of the era. The book gave me a whole new perspective into the lives of the German people after the First World War and during the tumultuous times of the Nazi regime. What the book does show is the totality of Nazi control of people’s lives and the deep trauma suffered as a result.Those who had joined out of a sense of victimhood, particularly in the early years of The Party, were utterly committed to the persecution of those they saw as persecuting themselves, and were furiously opposed to those, often more senior than them, who seemed to have other things to care about! In addition, Fink was widely respected for not ducking the miserable task of informing families of the deaths of their men in person (his own son Erich was killed in France in August 1944). I often find books of this nature too large in scope to really connect with - they feel like just facts.