They Thought They Were Free Audiobook By Milton Mayer cover art

They Thought They Were Free

The Germans, 1933-45

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They Thought They Were Free

By: Milton Mayer
Narrated by: Michael Page
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First published in 1955, They Thought They Were Free is an eloquent and provocative examination of the development of fascism in Germany. Milton Mayer's book is a study of 10 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.

©1955 The University of Chicago (P)2017 Tantor Europe Fascism Germany Ideologies & Doctrines Military Politics & Government Sociology Wars & Conflicts World War II War Scary Thought-Provoking

Critic reviews

"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." ( New York Times)
Insightful Historical Perspective • Fascinating Interviews • Fantastic Narrator • Riveting Conversations • Cautionary Tale
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An engaging insight as to how a nation was swayed into despotism incrementally yet whloley

Must read(Listen)for anyone serious about history

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The book took real life stories of various characters unique in their own way. Provides a study on how a regular citizen could get to where Germany was entering WWII. provides a juxtaposition to our internment of American Japanese and our racism towards black folk.

Interesting look at Nazis

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Would you listen to They Thought They Were Free again? Why?

Yes. It is a detailed account of the thought pattern(s) that led to the destruction of the German nation through the lives of ten average individuals in a small rural town, community.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I found it a detailed book. Mr. Mayer, his presentation throughout the book gives the reader a constant barrage of options, in the various acts and behaviour of his 10 nazi friends. The constant how when where or why is always being asked in ones own mind. The book moves quickly from chapter to chapter and as often in my case, does soul searching.

Any additional comments?

I suggest that this book, might be presented to students throughout the world as an "eye opener" in regards to human behaviour. How it all did manage to come together, through no pattern of behaviour that might be deemed as what I call normal. To attempt to obliterate, erase humanity with justification? The world that I know weeps, I weep.

Time might change ones behaviour pattern

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People don't change for the better as much as we'd like to think, even when the cost is millions of lives. They'll look the other way, make excuses, rationalize away the worst dictators and the collective ability to do murder and destruction on a massive scale. Even time and punishment doesn't seem to change that.
It makes me worry about where we are today.
Well read and definitely recommended for all.

A Warning to the Future

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Although dry in parts, this was mostly a fascinating read. It puts alot of things in perspective that you wont get from a textbook and contains alot of quotables that are still relevant today.

Thought provoking an excellent narration

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Learn why good men do nothing. Too much to do in lives. The promises of a better life.

Relevant to Trump

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This book was easy to listen to and very eye opening regarding the perspectives of the German people during the Nazi regime. I have nothing negative to say about this book. It was great!

The amazing depth to which this story seeks to understand the average German’s perspective during the Nazi regime.

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This is so very relevant to the times in which we find ourselves. This is how MAGA will view themselves when this is all over.

This should be required listening for every American

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This is history told from the viewpoint of ordinary German residents of a single town, all sharing one common attribute: during the Nazi era, they joined the Nazi party. Few of their memories recount the horrific end of Hitler's Third Reich. Most of their remembering involves the years from 1938 to 1940. These years were the high water mark of German fascism, when German Jews were stripped of their citizenship, their homes and businesses set ablaze, and the concentration camps began to fill. The era culminated in the too-easy defeat of France, and the Occupation of Paris. That all the jubilation ended with German cities being bombed to rubble and American, British, French, and Soviet troops treading Nazi banners underfoot seems not to have influenced these Germans negatively towards Nazi policies regarding war, race, or human rights. Some of them chalk up the outcome of the war to bad luck or poor leadership rather than moral rot among the German populace. For a few, there were moments when they sensed they were being used by a malevolent government to do horrible, inhuman things. They shrugged and did nothing to impede such atrocities. Others just "went along" with current thinking until well-deserved defeat swallowed them.

This book was originally written in the mid-1950s, when Germany had been divided East and West, wartime memories were still fresh, and Nazis were still being arrested and tried by both Allied and German courts. Today, it can be read as a warning from History. Decency, humanity, and compassion are shown to be fungible. If all around you seem to agree that Jews, Roma, Socialists, Catholics, homosexuals (name your "out" group) are liabilities rather than assets to good social order, it is easy to "go along" with mistreating them--until the roundups begin and the extermination camps begin receiving trainloads of the doomed.

Some of those interviewed in this book have no regrets, other than that Germany lost two World Wars. The American insurrectionists of 1/6/21 have made the same arguments about the 2020 election, and have identified many of the same "out" groups as the real threat to an "orderly" American society. There is the warning.

An Unsettling View into History

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I loved it. I know this sounds picky but I would have liked to know more about the 10 men. Fascinating. Excellent work.

Fascinating look @ racism, nationalism & survival.

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