They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45 
by 

Milton Sanford Mayer

 

They Wanted It; They Got It; And They Liked It

Milton Mayer was that rarest of writers: a journalist who knew his job was to create interesting facts; and a philosopher who knew that facts are meaningless without a theory, a coherent narrative, that connects them. His phenomenological analysis of ten Everyman Nazis was remarkable but largely unremarked when it was first published in 1954 during the Red Scare of McCarthyism. The book may be even more relevant today in understanding the Red Scare of a different sort: Trumpism.

Mayer's central conclusion is profoundly simple: "Nazism was a mass movement and not the tyranny of a diabolical few over helpless millions." It is easy to forget that Hitler was democratically elected and that his regime was a Rechtsstaat, a constitutional state in which the exercise of governmental power is constrained by the law. But perhaps few know what Mayer discovered in his year of interviews in post-war Germany, that the 'average' German working stiff not only welcomed the rise of Hitler but looked back fondly to the rule of National Socialism as the best days of his life. Nazism was what most Germans wanted - or, under pressure of combined reality and illusion, came to want. They wanted it; they got it; and they liked it."

In the same way it's easy to forget that Donald Trump has been elected by a people, perhaps not by a majority but by enough of them. And despite his demonstrated racism, misogyny, narcissism, vulgarity, and incompetence, he still demands the loyalty of those who elected him and even of those who have been humiliated by him. As Mayer points out, "Responsible men never shirk responsibility, and so when they must reject it, they deny it." This is precisely what the American people are doing at the moment, rejecting responsibility for a situation that they created and want still.

They Thought They Were Free is a prophetic book in an authentically biblical sense: it articulates a fundamental flaw in democratic society, namely that such societies, like every other, from time to time embrace pure evil without even becoming aware of it. Perhaps William Burroughs was right, the evil in North America was there waiting before the first European settlers, even before the first inhabitants. It has now become part of the national character. The self-absorption of the American people ensures that this evil can only fester and grow until it bursts like a boil. God help the rest of us when it does. Americans will undoubtedly find someone else to blame.