A note from 'A Village in the Third Reich'

I have recently finished reading 'A Village in the Third Reich', which I cannot recommend enough if you're interested in World War II history. The book takes a look at the history of Oberstdorf, a village at the foot of Bavaria, Germany, next to the border with Austria, and the experience of its people from the end of the First World War, to the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.

This is not a review of the book, you can find many of those online. I just wanted to highlight a point from the book that drew my attention.

It's about the story of a local resistance man in Oberstdorf, Hans Stadler.

As the Second World War drew to a close in late April 1945, the small Bavarian village of Oberstdorf was deeply divided between diehard Nazis determined to fight on and those who wanted to surrender peacefully and spare the village from destruction. Stadler was a local forester and hunter who had joined the Heimatschutz, a civilian militia working covertly to hand Oberstdorf over to the approaching Allies.

On the night of 27 April, after meeting with fellow resistance members in the village, Stadler returned to the Birgsau SS training camp where he had his quarters, intending to steal weapons for the resistance. In the early hours of 28 April he encountered SS Sergeant Josef Berghuber, a man he knew and with whom he did not agree much. When Berghuber ordered him to stop, Stadler, apparently too proud to comply, turned and walked away. Without warning, Berghuber raised his gun and shot him dead.

This killing galvanised the resistance, which launched a coup on the night of 30 April, arresting Oberstdorf's prominent Nazis, and handing over the village to the French. Friends of Stadler, however, wanted revenge and on 4 May, a group from the resistance tracked down Berghuber and beat him to death with their rifle butts. These two deaths divided the people of the village, some taking the side of SS Sergeant Berghuber, saying he was only doing his job, while others defended Stadler and considered his resistance efforts as heroic.

What drew my attention to the story was how the authors framed it in the wider context of the war, and how much more intensely we feel tragedy when it happens close to home:

"As the greatest conflict in human history neared its end, the issues that divided them, therefore focused on such matters as whether or not Stadler had been looting goods for the black market, or if Berghuber (who was not an Oberstdorfer) had simply been doing his duty.

In the context of the war in which it is estimated that some 80 million people died, it might seem that the deaths of these two minor players are of little consequence. Yet among all the hideous crimes committed in the Third Reich, it is these specific acts of violence that were to polarise the villagers more intensely than any other. The cold-blooded killing of Stadler, followed by the savage clubbing to death of Berghuber, had happened within the villagers' own community to men anyone might have spoken to hours before they were slain. It was as if all the barbarity, butchery and horror of war, all the misery, the grief and suffering had been encapsulated in the deaths of these two men."