They Thought They Were Free, by Milton Mayer

[The2ndWheel]

http://www.thirdreich.net/Thought_They_Were_Free.html

What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if he people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.

"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it - please try to believe me - unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, "regretted," that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these "little measures" that no "patriotic German" could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.

[ncrainbowgrrl]

1. excellent book.

:thumbsup:

[texpatriot2004]

2. My spouse is reading this book now.n.t

[BrklynLiberal]

3. kick kick kick..for those who naively think that there is no threat

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

[justabob]

4. Great book if you can find it nt

[no_hypocrisy]

5. Got my copy on Amazon. I HAD to have it.

[justabob]

6. It took me a while to find it

Months. It had to be special ordered etc. I didn't go that route because well, I am weird... I wanted to find it and buy it and carry it home and read it. I finally found it at a used book store for 2.98. :)

[kentuck]

7. Good phrase...

"...one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head."

[The2ndWheel]

9. That portion of the book was the first thing I thought of

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5620728

after reading a thread you started earlier.

[Doctor_J]

8. Really good book

points out how fascism can overtake sane people as well as drooling psychopaths.

[PDittie]

10. ~

[localroger]

11. Shirer paints pretty much the same picture

...in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Being a foreign journalist in Germany during the rise of the Reich he was uniquely positioned to see the Nazi takeover for what it was, and how it made its appeal to both the common people and the powerful business interests which helped it along for their own selfish reasons.