Of Hard Boards

Why did Nazism take root in Germany in 1933? What conditions do and do not move a society in the direction of a repressive fascist dictatorship? They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Meyer, explores the experience of ten "regular" Germans in the years during and leading up to World War II. The book grapples with questions of social responsibility and the moral culpability of the average German, but I read the book with an eye toward the question: what led Germany down its path toward ruin and fascism? How did the German people become so vociferously anti-Semitic and what led the them to support and adore Hitler? There seems to be six political conditions or themes that weave their way through this book to shed light on these questions. Theme 1: A Geopolitics of Siege Milton Meyer repeatedly emphasizes the role that geopolitical pressure played in moving Germany toward Nazism. Specifically, the German people felt encircled by enemies and oppressed...

From Milton Mayer, "They Thought They Were Free": “You know, Herr Professor, we are told that not a sparrow falls without God’s care; I am not being light when I say this—that not a person ‘fell,’ fell ill or in need, lost his job or his house, without the Party’s caring. No organization had ever done this before in Germany, maybe nowhere else. Believe me, such an organization is irresistible to men. No one in Germany was alone in his troubles—”   “Except,” I said, “‘inferior races’ and opponents of the regime.”   “Of course,” he said, “that is understood, but they were few, they were outside society, ‘over the fence,’ and nobody thought about them.”   “But these, too, were ‘sparrows.’”   “Yes,” he said. “Could these,” I said, “have been ‘the least of them,’ of whom Jesus spoke?”   “Herr Professor, we didn’t see it that way. We were wrong, sinful, but we didn’t see it that way. We saw ‘the least of them’ among our own pe...