During the 1920s and 1930s, German tourism was booming, particularly among Americans and the British. Attracted by the scenery, the food, the culture, and the favourable exchange rates, they also came to witness the rise of Hitler. Julia Boyd’s book, including extracts from her mother’s 1938 diary, offers an exceptional insight into the period. Based on first-hand accounts by foreigners, Julia Boyd gives voice to a wide range of people, from students, politicians, facists and communists, to scholars, musicians, artists and poets. Scores of previously unpublished diaries and letters have been sourced to present a vivid new picture of the rise of Nazi German.

Julia Boyd is the author of A Dance with the Dragon: The Vanished World of Peking’s Foreign Colony, The Excellent Doctor Blackwell: The Life of the First Female Physician and Hannah Riddell: An Englishwoman in Japan. An experienced researcher, she has scoured archives all over the world to find original material for her books. As the wife of a diplomat, she lived in Germany from 1977 to 1981. She has served as a trustee of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and is currently a trustee of the Wigmore Hall.

Anne Sebba is a biographer, lecturer, radio presenter and former Reuters’ foreign correspondent. She has written nine critically-acclaimed books including That Woman: The Duchess of Windsor and the Scandal that Brought Down a King, Jennie Churchill and lives of Mother Teresa, Laura Ashley and Enid Bagnold. The film rights for Les Parisiennes – an account of life for women in Paris before, during and after the Second World War – have already been sold and a multi-episode series is planned.

Please note this event is listed in the JBW programme on Sunday 11 March.