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They Thought They Were Free : The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer (2017, Trade Paperback)
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They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 193345 by Mayer, Milton [Paperback]
- Buy it nowThey Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 193345 by Mayer, Milton [Paperback]
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About this product
Product Identifiers
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
ISBN-10022652583X
ISBN-139780226525839
eBay Product ID (ePID)18038268684
Product Key Features
Book TitleThey Thought They Were Free : the Germans, 1933-45
Number of Pages384 Pages
LanguageEnglish
TopicMilitary / World War II, Europe / Germany, Sociology / General, Political Ideologies / Fascism & Totalitarianism, Jewish
Publication Year2017
IllustratorYes
GenrePolitical Science, Social Science, History
AuthorMilton Mayer
FormatTrade Paperback
Dimensions
Item Height1 in
Item Weight17 Oz
Item Length8.5 in
Item Width5.5 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceTrade
LCCN2017-027110
Dewey Edition23
Reviews[Mayer] wrote earnestly without an offensive earnest tone. He took stances without posturing. There is art in that., [Mayer] was a conscientious objector during World War II and was a leading voice in the pacifist movement., Among the many books written on Germany after the collapse of Hitler's Thousand Year Reich, this book by Milton Mayer is one of the most readable and most enlightening...never before has the mentality of the average German under the Nazi regime been made as intelligible to the outsider as in Mr. Mayer's report., Mayer is a journalist. He is also a man of convictions and a courageous man. Though he is an American, a Jew, and of German descent, he emphasizes that Nazis are--after all--human beings, that most of us have not acted very differently from most of them under comparable circumstances...Mayer's comparisons with American behavior in the matter of the deportation of Japanese citizens during the war on the one hand, in matters concerning the Jenner and McCarthy proceedings on the other, must be shamefacedly accepted., Mr. Mayer's book is the fruit of a year which he passed in a German university town; it is composed of what might be called a series of meditations upon discussions which he held chiefly with ten former Nazis. Why had these men - including among them a baker, a tailor, a teacher and a policeman - become Nazis in the first place? Why had they participated in the crimes of the movement? How do they feel now after defeat and after the 're-education' of the occupying forces? Mr. Mayer's answers are sensitively worked out., A timely reminder of how otherwise unremarkable and in many ways reasonable people can be seduced by demagogues and populists., 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.'
Afterword byEvans, Richard J.
Dewey Decimal943.086
Edition DescriptionEnlarged edition
Table Of ContentPART 1. TEN MEN Kronenberg November 9, 1638 November 9, 1938 1. Ten Men 2. The Lives Men Lead 3. Hitler and I 4. "What Would You Have Done?" 5. The Joiners 6. The Way to Stop Communism 7. "We Think with Our Blood" 8. The Anti-Semitic Swindle 9. "Everybody Knew" "Nobody Knew" 10. "We Christians Had the Duty" 11. The Crimes of the Losers 12. "That's the Way We Are" 13. But Then It Was Too Late 14. Collective Shame 15. The Furies: Heinrich Hildebrant 16. The Furies: Johann Kessler 17. The Furies: Furor Teutonicus PART II. THE GERMANS Heat Wave 18. There Is No Such Thing 19. The Pressure Cooker 20. "Peoria Über Alles" 21. New Boy in the Neighborhood 22. Two New Boys in the Neighborhood 23. "Like God in France" 24. But a Man Must Believe in Something 25. Push-Button Panic PART III: THEIR CAUSE AND CURE The Trial November 9, 1948 26. The Broken Stones 27. The Liberators 28. The Re-Educators Re-Educated 29. The Reluctant Phoenix 30. Born Yesterday 31. Tug of Peace 32. "Are We the Same as the Russians?" 33. Marx Talks to Michel 34. The Uncalculated Risk Acknowledgements Afterword by Richard J. Evans
SynopsisThe classic, chilling account of how fascism took over Germany -- and of the constant danger of complacency "When this book was first published it received some attention from the critics but none at all from the public. Nazism was finished in the bunker in Berlin and its death warrant signed on the bench at Nuremberg." That's Milton Mayer, writing in a foreword to the 1966 edition of They Thought They Were Free . He's right about the critics: the book was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1956. General readers may have been slower to take notice, but over time they did--what we've seen over decades is that any time people, across the political spectrum, start to feel that freedom is threatened, the book experiences a ripple of word-of-mouth interest. They Thought They Were Free is an eloquent and provocative examination of the development of fascism in Germany. Mayer's book is a study of ten Germans and their lives from 1933-45, based on interviews he conducted after the war when he lived in Germany. Mayer had a position as a research professor at the University of Frankfurt and lived in a nearby small Hessian town which he disguised with the name "Kronenberg." "These ten men were not men of distinction," Mayer noted, but they had been members of the Nazi Party; Mayer wanted to discover what had made them Nazis. His discussions with them of Nazism, the rise of the Reich, and mass complicity with evil became the backbone of this book, an indictment of the ordinary German that is all the more powerful for its refusal to let the rest of us pretend that our moment, our society, our country are fundamentally immune. A new foreword to this edition by eminent historian of the Reich Richard J. Evans puts the book in historical and contemporary context. We live in an age of fervid politics and hyperbolic rhetoric. They Thought They Were Free cuts through that, revealing instead the slow, quiet accretions of change, complicity, and abdication of moral authority that quietly mark the rise of evil., How do people become acclimated to fascism? What leads them down the slippery slope from rational intentions to atrocious actions--and how does that slope get greased? Milton Mayer's eloquent and provocative examination of the development of fascism among ten everyday Germans between 1933 and 1945 is still sobering--and more timely than ever. These ten men were average Germans who all became Nazis. But how? Mayer shows how the gradual habitation of people to a government that they do not feel they can predict, understand, or influence led to global catastrophe., "When this book was first published it received some attention from the critics but none at all from the public. Nazism was finished in the bunker in Berlin and its death warrant signed on the bench at Nuremberg." That's Milton Mayer, writing in a foreword to the 1966 edition of They Thought They Were Free . He's right about the critics: the book was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1956. General readers may have been slower to take notice, but over time they did--what we've seen over decades is that any time people, across the political spectrum, start to feel that freedom is threatened, the book experiences a ripple of word-of-mouth interest. And that interest has never been more prominent or potent than what we've seen in the past year. They Thought They Were Free is an eloquent and provocative examination of the development of fascism in Germany. Mayer's book is a study of ten Germans and their lives from 1933-45, based on interviews he conducted after the war when he lived in Germany. Mayer had a position as a research professor at the University of Frankfurt and lived in a nearby small Hessian town which he disguised with the name "Kronenberg." "These ten men were not men of distinction," Mayer noted, but they had been members of the Nazi Party; Mayer wanted to discover what had made them Nazis. His discussions with them of Nazism, the rise of the Reich, and mass complicity with evil became the backbone of this book, an indictment of the ordinary German that is all the more powerful for its refusal to let the rest of us pretend that our moment, our society, our country are fundamentally immune. A new foreword to this edition by eminent historian of the Reich Richard J. Evans puts the book in historical and contemporary context. We live in an age of fervid politics and hyperbolic rhetoric. They Thought They Were Free cuts through that, revealing instead the slow, quiet accretions of change, complicity, and abdication of moral authority that quietly mark the rise of evil.
LC Classification NumberDD256.5.M39 2017
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Ratings and reviews
Most relevant reviews
- 04 Jul, 2018
We're doomed to make mistakes unless we remember history.
I'm a slow reader, but so far the slow and sneaky way that German citizens began to lose their rights is a real shocker. They were being lied to and were losing their memory of what truth was, and they were so hungry and needing work so badly that it was easier for them to believe what was in the media of the 30s and 40s than to critically analyze what they were being told. The sad thing is that it was all for greed and power - the picking on Jews, handicapped and intellectuals. I am awe-struck at how this seems so likely to be happening in the USA. And I am sad. So far it is very unsettling to me, but very necessary to learn.Verified purchase: YesCondition: New
- 05 Apr, 2022
History LESSON FOR SURE
Book is very informative. Someone told me about the book and I was stunned. Ir is an amazing story.Verified purchase: YesCondition: New
- 27 Jul, 2021
How reasonable people can embrace evil.
If you are interested in assessing the current right-wing movement with respect to historical precedent, this book will provide a stunning though terrifying look into why the Trump-led ideology of deception and control is steeped in the fascism of the 1930s and 40s.Verified purchase: YesCondition: New
- 30 Jun, 2021
Good title
I was looking forward to reading this book. I am only a few chapters into it, but it is sometimes hard to follow. Lots of German words and names is my biggest issue and trying to keep up with the 10 men that is the basis of the book. I don't know what I was expecting, it is about Germany(LOL) Hopefully it will get better as I get into it more.Verified purchase: YesCondition: New
- 26 Jun, 2022
fascist insight
It was a subject I was interested inVerified purchase: YesCondition: New
- 08 Sep, 2020
Resourceful
Very goodVerified purchase: YesCondition: Pre-owned
- 28 Jun, 2021
The best.
Awesome historical overview.Verified purchase: YesCondition: Pre-owned
- 22 Dec, 2020
Excellent Read!
Relevant and compelling!Verified purchase: YesCondition: New
