One of my favorite books this year. It's in German, so it might not be relevant to most, but to me it means the world that the @otto_mueller_verlag went through the process of sending me a copy all the way to California. I refuse to give my book 💰 to the A**z*n behemoth 🤮. 

The book is about the Nazi era in my hometown and region. I've always wondered how it all played out in our rural backyard, and my grandfather doesn't say all that much. He was 16 and in military training for three weeks before going to war - right when it ended. 

Austria likes to claim the victim role because, yes, in 1938 the country was annexed. But the truth is very different, and this book is yet another testimony to that. The crazy things is that my hometown was among the towns with the highest vote for the Nazis already in the early 1930s! I had no idea because of course nobody talks about things like that nowadays. 

Somehow I thought that the rural Alps were less of a breeding ground for these ideologies, and in part that is true - there wasn't as much diversity and therefore need to expel certain ethnicities. But I think the tough life that mountain farmers lived may have attracted new and more radical ideas in terms of a bettering economy.

Lastly, these same mountains were also a great place to hide. In the last days of the war, several of the most prominent Nazis hid out in our mountains. The most striking example is probably that of Hermann Göring who stayed at one of our castles and was captured not far by the Americans. This same castle was also used as a small concentration camp. I literally see it from my house from across the lake. 

Anyway, thanks for reading. What a book. Thank you Rudolf Leo for this outstanding research.