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    They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45
    They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45
    They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45
    Audiobook10 hours

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

    Written by Milton Mayer

    Narrated by Michael Page

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    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 ten 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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMay 23, 2017
    ISBN9781541473805
    Author

    Milton Mayer

    Milton Mayer was an educator, journalist, and editor who worked with Robert Hutchins at the University of Chicago. A prolific writer, among his numerous works are What Can a Man Do? and If Men Were Angels. John H. Hicks was Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst until his retirement in 1986. Studs Terkel was a journalist and author of several best-selling oral histories. He was a student at the University of Chicago when Robert Hutchins was president. 

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    Reviews for They Thought They Were Free

    4.5/5

    159 ratings8 reviews

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    • 4/5
      The questions are complex, the answers often more so. You don’t read books like these expecting your mind to keep quiet and behave itself afterward.

      Excellent treatment of the issues surrounding individual and national culpability, motivation and guilt of the Germans and Germany with relation to Nazism. Philosophical, intellectual, and thoughtful without overdoing it.

      Probably the best that I’ve read so far. A commentary that tries to achieve some semblance of the truth without drowning the reader with familiar, predictable and unhelpful judgementalisms.

      But a small warning, it may leave you with that disquieting “abandon hope all ye who enter here” feeling afterwards.

      3 people found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Intense reading. And occasionally hard to follow, it nevertheless offers a fresh take on the German common man during the Nazi era. I would liked to hear opinions of some women too though.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This is one of those books that, once read, is unforgettable.
    • 5/5
      Awesome point of view on life and liberty in general.
    • 5/5
      An amazing look into post-nazi Germany shortly after the fall of the regime. What makes this story even more special is that is it told primarily through the individual stories of former nazis.
    • 5/5
      Fascinating and essential. Too often we discuss the propaganda efforts of the Nazis without recognizing that propaganda’s effects on the ordinary patriotic German people. In some cases they denied the Holocaust rumors as anti-German propaganda pumped into the country from the Allies. In other cases they ignored atrocities against the Jews since they themselves had anti-semitic views.
    • 5/5
      Everyone should read this book!! Wars aren't cut and dry, and there are many signs that are missed. We look back at WWII and wonder how any one could have followed Hitler but, as this book will show, it was pretty darn easy. It's also super scary how this book reflects current life in US America.
    • 3/5
      This book was published in 1955. The author in Germany after the war befriended ten 'ordinary' Germans and talked to them a lot. Discouragingly, he found all ten thought Hitler was a good thing for Germany, and even long after the war all still held that view except for one who changed his mind as to Hitler because of his getting into the War. Nor did they disapprove of Hitler's policy as to the Jews, although most felt that the evil done to the Jews was not known or approved by Hitler. But all or most approved of what was done against the Jews. This is what led me to read the book, to see what Germans thought after the war. But the book also spends a lot of time discussing American policy in regard to Germany after the war, most of which discussion did not excite my attention since it has been made obsolescent by events. The author of course had no idea that the USSR would fall and that Germany would be reunited without the USSR's approval. That part of the book is of only historical interest. I think this is Mayer's most famous book and it is the only book by him I've read. But in olden times I read many articles by him, including the article in 1941 in The SaturdayEvening Post entitled "I Think I Will Sit This One Out.," which I still remember and which I disagreed with when I read it at age 13 or so.