PDF Ebook They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45
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They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45
PDF Ebook They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45
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Review
“Milton Mayer’s 1955 classic They Thought They Were Free, recently republished with an afterword by the Cambridge historian Richard J. Evans, was one of the first accounts of ordinary life under Nazism. [It is} dotted with humor and written with an improbably light touch.… In 1951, he returned to Germany to find out what had made Nazism possible.… When Mayer returned home, he was afraid for his own country. He felt … that under the right conditions, he could well have turned out as his German friends did. He learned that Nazism took over Germany not ‘by subversion from within, but with a whoop and a holler.’” (Cass Sunstein The New York Review of Books 2018-06-28)"A timely reminder of how otherwise unremarkable and in many ways reasonable people can be seduced by demagogues and populists." (Richard J. Evans, author of The Coming of the Third Reich)
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About the Author
Milton Mayer (1908–86) was the author of What Can a Man Do? And coauthor of The Revolution in Education. He wrote for the Progressive, Harper’s, and other outlets.
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Product details
Paperback: 390 pages
Publisher: University of Chicago Press; First Edition,Enlarged edition (November 28, 2017)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 022652583X
ISBN-13: 978-0226525839
Product Dimensions:
5.5 x 1 x 8.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.4 out of 5 stars
20 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#80,795 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
"They wanted it; they got it; and they liked it."In 1952, American journalist Milton Mayer moved his family to Marburg, Germany, a small town near Frankfurt. There, he set about to answer the question plaguing the world since Hilter's rise in 1933: how did a modern, western democracy fall prey to Nazism? Mayer was from German decent himself and a Jew, and he decided the answer to this quandary might lie in the "little man." Mayer met with ten such men in Marburg, men who had average jobs and lived average lives. In the book, he calls them his friends. Tailor. Police officer. Baker. Schoolteacher. What Mayer discovered, and documented in his book, was the story of how fanaticism can overtake us all."[They] did not know before 1933 that Nazism was evil. They did not know between 1933 and 1945 that it was evil. And they do not know it now."Even in all the turmoil, the poverty and the destruction of the post-war period, eight of his ten friends were unapologetic about their support for National Socialism. They remembered it as the best time of their lives, the time a "little guy" like them kept a job and even have money for a vacation now and again. Most were against the war, and very sorry about the whole genocide thing (but those Jews and Gypsies really did bring it on themselves), with one going as far as to blame all the Nazi bad deeds on Himmler. Hitler was just a fine chap who had nothing to do with it. He'd looked out for the "little man."The book starts with the burning of the Marburg synagogue on Kristallnacht. One of Mayer's subjects, an elderly tailor who the author suspects lies to him, at least a little, spent three years in prison for the arson. Mayer sought to get to the root of why each of his ten friends joined the Nazi party. For some, it was a true belief, but others were so-called March Violets, latecomers to the party who joined when their victory was inevitable, and because everyone else did. For the schoolteacher, the most thoughtful and remorseful of all Mayer's subjects (and I would argue his favorite), it was a matter of keeping his job. He'd been a social democrat in another town and wanted to be above suspicion himself. But, even he admitted to enjoying the feeling of belonging and took pride in wearing the Nazi uniform."My friends wanted Germany purified. They wanted it purified of the politicians, of all the politicians. And Hitler, the pure man, the antipolitician, was the man, untainted by 'politics,' which was only a cloak for corruption."I don't know if this seems familiar to anyone else.Interestingly, although Mayer's book makes the case that any one of us can be the next crop of "little men" taken in by a charismatic leader who provides us an outlet for our frustrations, that's not what the author set out to suggest. In fact, Mayer argues that there's something unique about the German national character that turned them into Nazis. He was also profoundly concerned that the continued American occupation of Germany (as of 1954) would turn the country again into Nazis, under a new anti-communist heading. Modern readers will recognize little of what Mayer suggests is the German national character. We also know the occupation didn't turn out the way he feared, and that Germany is one of the most successful, stable and prosperous democracies in the world."Mayer's rambling final chapters are weak, less interesting than the earlier ones, and dated."The above quote is from the new afterword added to the latest re-release of the book (2017), which I highly recommend reading (I often skip such things). I'm in perfect agreement, and it made rating this book difficult, because the first 250 pages are so, so good, and the last 100 near worthless. But I suppose that's the risk you take when you read a book written 60 years ago. I do wish in the re-release the pseudonyms for the town and the ten subjects had been dropped, like with Anne Frank's diary. There's only an outside chance one of the ten is still alive and no more need to protect identities. For my review, I have chosen to call the town Mayer wrote about by it's real name, Marburg. Throughout the book, Mayer refers to it as "Kronenberg." Imagine my frustration when I tried to find that town on Google.This is the kind of book people talk about and refer to and quote but don't read. Don't be that people. Read it.
The writing style is very conversational and easy to read. Even though it was written over 50 years ago, the examples Mayer uses illustrate excellent parallels between German society and American society. It is critical of both societies, and yet still empathizes with us "little people." I think it also shows that with the right kind of circumstances, totalitarianism would have flourished in the USA as much as it did in Germany.Almost every paragraph of this book had me pause and think of an exact situation going on today. An example is a man who will not be persuaded by facts about the number of Jewish citizens in power... during this section, "alternative facts" kept flashing in my head. We are living in the same reality, just with different terms and phrases to describe this reality. It's just re-branded. Hopefully in ten years we are not being interviewed by a foreigner who wants to know "how could this happen?"
It is easy to see from this book how the German people were fooled by their then government. It is a good book to compare what we in the U.S. are dealing with today.
This book gets tedious toward the end when the author tries to analyze the German mind of the time, but it does explain why ordinary Germans were enthusiastic about Hitler. For that alone, it should be required reading. The author talked to ordinary Germans in the 1950s. Since their lives in the 50s were still worse than they had been before the war, it was easy to explain what happened. It is a cautionary tale.
What an insightful and enlightening book. We all hear about the history of Nazi Germany from people who have an agenda. Finally, a peek into what REALLY happened, spoken from those who MADE it happen. STELLAR....BRILLIANT.
excellent book on what it is like for ordinary people not specifically those targeted by authorities to live under totalitarianism and how they go along with it. Chilling.
I really looked forward to reading this book, based on the description and other reviews, but found it boring and couldn't get very far into it before giving up.
A very interesting and informative book!
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