Exploring Freedom and Oppression in Nazi Germany: They Thought They Were Free, 1933-45

Travelling Kiwi: Excellent if you are open minded. Shows how easy it is to fool ourselves that we live in a free society and that dissenters are wrong, and for the most part we don't miss them when they are gone.

Every Westerner needs to read this. You may come to the same conclusion as I did, that without accountability and open discussion and free speech our democracies are a sham, an illusion.

United States on Aug 30, 2023

Amazon Customer: Gave up before the end as it comes across as justifying the actions of "innocent" nazis

United Kingdom on Apr 21, 2017

SSG Cedar: The first part of the book is much better than the second part. The first is about the author's year talking to 10 men in a large town in a rural part of Germany shortly after World War II ended. The men had all become Nazis for various reasons. They were all "small men" as they described themselves. Why did they become Nazis and what did they think of their experience? At the time all still thought the Nazi movement had done good for Germany.

The second part is less useful. The author attempts to explain the "German character." He goes back to ancient Roman descriptions of this are of the country to show that the Germans never change. His conclusions are exactly what 30 years of British and American propaganda said about the "Germans." The difficulty of changing the German character is disproven by events after the '50s when this book was published.

The second and third sections are worth reading as long as you keep a skeptical attitude. I learned things about what American had done in Germany after the war which I did not know.

United States on Mar 27, 2016

Dag Magnus Nielsen: The book was interesting and fascinating, but in the laste half the Author goes haywire on his own interpretations og the German society. Long, speculative, passages (often quite good ones) clutters an otherwise exciting book.

United Kingdom on Oct 12, 2013

D. Nelson: They Thought They Were Free-the germans 1933-45
Milton Mayer - author. Published by the University of Chicago Press

First published in 1955 the book has the advantage of being a collection of recollections about the conditions of life in the small town of Kronnenberg. The citizens of Kronneberg were of the most conservative of ordinary people. In fact they were not even Germans, according to `real' Germans. Kronnenberg was in Hesse. Its people were sometimes referred to as blinder Hesse - Blind Hessian - when needing to call some one backward or stupid.

Milton Meyer interviewed ten members of this community, as he said in his forward "It was the newspaperman's fascination that prevailed. . . and left me dissatisfied with every analysis of Nazism. I wanted to see this monstrous man, the Nazi. I wanted to talk to him and to listen to him. I wanted to try to understand him.. . . In 1935 I spent a month in Berlin trying to obtain a series of meetings with Adolf Hitler.....but without success. . . Then I travelled in Nazi Germany for an American magazine.....for the first time (I) realized that Nazism was a mass movement and not a tyranny of a diabolical few over...

United States on Dec 20, 2011

Paul B. Dunlap: I've always been interested in German history, particularly the most eventful, tumultuous, and tragic period between 1918 and 1945. In the western world, the question so often is, "how could it happen," with the implied clauses of "in modern world," "in the civilized west," and so on. I must admit that though I've read some good analyses of the Weimar period, I've never found a satisfactory answer to this important question. Mayer provides one, and his answer is incredible in its simplicity and common sense.

The brilliance of this book can best be summed up with the familiar platitude, "don't tell me, show me." Mayer doesn't describe the mood of the Germans, the feel of the time or the period, or what have you. Like any good interviewer, he gets out of the way and lets the Germans tell their own story. By him doing so, the reader gets to see history through the eyes of the Germans, the way saw it (or the way they remember it), though poignant (even ironically humorous) anecdotes.

As for the answer to the question above, the answer is best summed up by one of Mayer's chapter titles, "What Would You Have Done?" So often we are blinded by the horror and enormity of the...

United States on Jan 18, 2010

Kindle Customer: In spite of the fact that the translation of this text is less than perfect, this is a 'must read' for everyone. The parallels between the people of Nazi Germany and those under the US administration of 2000-20008 is striking. The high level of racism, the complacent attitudes towards national politics, the failure of both societies to become educated in national and world affairs and the sense of 'being too busy' with day-to-day life to involve oneself in matters much greater and larger than their trivial lives is stunning! No, the USA does not see itself as being powerless against its own government but when told, like Nazi Germany, that it is unpatriotic to speak out against its government, there is no difference in the results. Criminality, war crimes and corruption existed in both countries with little, or no, criticism of its leaders.
As was said in the famous Pogo cartoon; We have met the enemy and he is us.

Canada on May 17, 2009