They Thought They Were Free the Germans and the Nazi Seduction - Book Report/Review Example

 They Thought They Were Free the Germans and the Nazi Seduction The problem of establishment of the Nazi dictatorship in Germany still remains to a certain extent a mystery, both for the rapidity of transformation of Europe’s largest liberal democracy into autocracy that from 1938 on turned into unprecedented regime of mass terror, and for seemingly feeble resistance that was offered to Nazism by the majority of German public. Milton Mayer, a progressive American journalist and writer, became one of the first among people who tried to solve the enigma of Germans’ conformity with Nazism. In his book, They Thought They Were Free (first published in 1955), Mayer attempts to look beyond the ideological explanations; he finds mass psychology of German ‘little man’ of the 1930s to be the answer. The writing of this book was rather peculiar endeavour; as Mayer himself recalls in the Foreword to the book, he understood the nature of Nazism as a mass movement, rather than a merely ideological doctrine enforced upon an unwilling population in 1935, during his first visit to Germany (xviii). After the WW II ended, he made an effort to contact some former Nazis who were representatives of the middle to lower-middle classes of German society in order to understand their motivations for having supported Hitler. Mayer’s findings from his conservations with and observations of these persons became the basic material for his book. The people with whom he had contact were mostly unremarkable; of all ten of them, eight were self-employed representatives of lower-middle class, with the other two, Heinrich Hildebrandt, a high-school teacher, and Willy Hofmeister, a policeman, being not too far from the former in their general social position; all of them regarded themselves as ‘little people’ (kleine Leute) (Mayer 44). As Mayer observes, the propensity for subservience to their social betters, which were deeply ingrained in these men, made them more receptive to the lures of Nazism, which contained both “elitist and servile impulses”, especially when the members of German social elite, to whom they usually looked for guidance, openly supported Nazi movement (44). However, Mayer makes clear that there was something more to Nazism’s triumph than mere capitalizing on the repressed submissive feelings of the ‘little men’. Unlike the regime of Imperial Germany, the Nazi dictatorship offered a prospect of upward social mobility for its adherents, and this, together with Hitler’s populist self-representation as one of the ‘ordinary people’, may help to explain the attraction many Germans felt towards Nazism at that time (Mayer 45). In fact, Mayer goes on, all his respondents did not perceive Nazism as brutal tyranny at all; living in parochial Hessian town, they were mostly oblivious of larger social processes and did not have any substantial knowledge about larger world (48). The institution of social welfare programs by the Nazis, which was a welcome step forward for many Germans in comparison with economic chaos of late Weimar Republic, was also an important factor. With the carefully fostered sense of ‘national community’, there was a widespread perception that these new benefits are distributed evenly, thus leading to a superficial semblance of social justice (Mayer 61). Mayer also remarks that one should not forget that early horrors of the Nazi rule were for a most part hidden from larger public (49). Most ordinary Germans were not required to participate too often in the official rites of the regime or be overtly devoted to the ideas of National Socialism; the tacit support for the Nazis was enough to carry on the same life as previously (Mayer 57). General conformism of German public was also, as Mayer opines, to play its part (58). In his view, Germans were much less likely to oppose the official ideas, or those ostensibly held by majority of their compatriots, than the members of less stratified societies, such as an American one (Mayer 58). As Mayer’s interviewee, Heinrich Hildebrandt told him, even though he regarded himself as clandestine democrat, he felt glad when the others were purged by Nazis, while he remained out of harm (Mayer 58). As Mayer believes, the same sort of attitude was actually displayed by many Germans as regarded the persecution of Jews in the pre-WW II years (59). The atmosphere of fear in which the suspected (even passive) opponents of Nazi rule lived prevented them from spreading their knowledge about repressive system they were often subjected to, to their friends and neighbours. This, in Mayer’s judgement, together with fear of societal isolation in case of displaying non-conformist attitudes, actually contributed to further acceptance of Nazism as ‘normal’ (60). An interesting aspect of Mayer’s interviewees’ perception of Nazi regime was a tendency to ascribe all ‘positive’ expressions of Nazi regime (such as its welfare policies) to the person of Hitler himself, while blaming everything on the ‘schemers’ among his advisers and high-ranking followers, such as Bormann, Himmler or Goebbels (64). Mayer observes that a tendency to venerate a supposedly ideal father figure was strong among the social categories to which ex-Nazis he contacted belonged; the fact that Hitler was not a divinely anointed sovereign like the Kaiser was, only increased the devotion of low-ranking Nazis to him, for they saw in Hitler their own image (66). In fact, the tendency to identify with charismatic leader was strengthened in many of the men Mayer interviewed by their past experience of parental abuse, from which they tried to escape by elevating Hitler, as ideal father figure, in place of their less than perfect biological fathers (66). The emancipation of woman is, in Mayer’s opinion, one of the surest ways toward undermining the dominance of authoritarian father figure in the child’s consciousness, and he believes that it was for this fact that Nazi regime during its rule tried to reverse the condition of women to their previous role as obedient housewives (Mayer 68). At the same time, according to Mayer’s observations, the role of Hitler’s military and political successes up to 1943 was also prominent in Germans’ attitude toward his regime. In the times of victory they were confident about the future of German nation, but with the catastrophic defeat of Nazi armies they lost such a confidence. None of the persons Mayer interviewed had any romantic feelings about Hitler’s military plans; they seemed to have never worshipped Hitler himself, and his defeat left him a mere historic character in their memory (70). Still, how the perfectly ordinary German citizens rationalised their support for quite radical Nazi movement? As Mayer relates, his more middle-class respondents, such as Hildebrandt or Kessler, a bank clerk, joined the Nazis, believing that soon the ‘revolutionary’ fervour of the Nazis would die out, and the people of ‘respectability’ would lead the National Socialist movement into more “bourgeois” direction (79). Their belief in legalistic procedures and the oaths of service, which Nazis used to their advantage, enabled the regime to make use of civil officials and military officers, who were accustomed to follow the orders of the state leaders unquestionably, and who, through their education and training, regarded any expression of dissent as amounting to treason (Mayer 80). The careerist inclinations of many of these civil servants led them to join the Nazi Party en masse, and while being Party members and enjoying higher social status it gave them, they were naturally not disposed towards disagreeing with the Party line (Mayer 85). The fear many middle-class and lower-middle class Germans felt towards more anti-capitalist revolutionary ideas, such as Marxism-Leninism of Communist Party of Germany, led them to regard Nazis as a bulwark against ‘godless Bolshevism’, widely perceived as threatening property and religious senses of German public (Mayer 97). As Mayer notes, with the Reichstag fire, anti-Communism became a sort of civic religion, widely advocated by the Nazis as opposing the ‘death of the soul’ and used by them to attack each and every political opponent (98). All in all, Milton Mayer’s book is an important treatise in the social history of Nazi Germany. It shows how seemingly ordinary people may be ready to support the most brutal dictatorship, and how even the most well-ordered societies are prone to succumbing to it. Works Cited Mayer, Milton. They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-1945. 5th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969. Print. Read More