A Brighter Dawn: the historical thread

When I first came up with the idea of A Brighter Dawn, I knew I wanted my historical protagonist, Clare, to travel to Germany in 1937 and stay until 1939. But then I had to ask myself, were Americans traveling to Germany during that time period? And if so, why? 

It turns out lots of Americans were traveling to Germany then and for all sorts of reasons. Author Julia Boyd, in her book Travelers in the Third Reich, details the travels of politicians, musicians, diplomats, athletes, poets, artists, celebrities, and scholars, including W. E. B. DuBois.

Members of the general public, including Harvard students John F. Kennedy and his friend Kirk LeMoyne “Lem” Billings, also toured Germany. The duo traveled in Europe during the summer of 1937 in Kennedy’s convertible, which he shipped over. JFK and Billings, like many others, documented their travels in diaries. (Check out this blog post about Kennedy and Billings’ trip.)

Of course none of the travelers could have predicted the horrors to come from the Third Reich, but an entry by Billings certainly encapsulated what allowed the devastation of the Third Reich. On August 17, 1937, he wrote, “Innsbruck – Munich Hitler seems very popular here—you can’t help but like a dictator when you are in his own country—as you hear so many wonderful things about him and really not too many bad things—Hitler’s strongest weapon seems to be his very efficient propaganda.”

Although many of Hitler’s racist policies were already in place, including the Nuremburg Race Laws (1935), the Nazi propaganda was so efficient that many Americans were uncertain what to believe about the regime. 

The late 1930s were a complicated time in Germany, one shared by American travelers. All sorts of people traveled for all sorts of reasons, including my fictional character Clare. You’ll have to read A Brighter Dawn to find out why she traveled—and, more importantly, why she stayed for nearly two years.