They Thought They Were Free

They Thought they Were Free: the Germans, 1933-1945
346 pages
© 1955 Milton Mayer

How could ordinary, decent people abide the Nazis for the span of twelve years -- to allow a baby born at the NSDAP's seizure of power to practically come of age under their banner? Shortly after World War II, Milton Meyer traveled to Germany and attempted to answer that question for himself. Omitting his Jewish heritage, he cultivated friendships with ten German citizens and approached them with questions about their life during the war.  His mission was to understand their experience.Though primarily writing for the western world of the 1950s, urging the powers not to turn the Germans into the anti-Soviet front line, virtually none of the import achieved here has faded with the decades. He searched for insight about the German soul under the Nazi state, but discovered man.

Today Hitler and the Nazis are a byword for evil, but for Meyer's Germans, this was not so. The totality of the Nazi evil was not revealed until after the Allies had swept across Germany and discovered the camps, those ghastly factories of obscenity where families were slaughtered with hellish efficiency. For the Germans interviewed, Hitler was a bolt from the blue, a strike of leadership in a time of self-indulgent parliamentary quibbling. He was a leader who believed in Germany, who could inspire the kind of discipline needed to rebuild and recover from the Great War and depression. He  advanced a siege mentality, but stirred up the fortitude requited to endure a struggle.  Judging from his friends, Meyer believes that most Germans knew little about the atrocities that would be committed under that threatened mindset; for them,  Hitler was the man who had cured unemployment,  who had restored national pride; such was his stature in their imaginations that even when it became obvious that the NSDAP was leading Germany into ruin,  he was beyond reproach. Disconnected from the party, he was the Kaiser, the head of state, the man above politics; when things went awry, it was his advisers who were held liable, his administrators deemed malevolent. “If only Hitler know what was happening,” some thought.   The belief that the king can do no wrong seems to have deep roots in the human psyche,  appearing seemingly everywhere.

Even if Hitler was not known then as the source of evil,  no one could deny that something was amiss in Germany. Here Meyer examines how the Jews could be subjected to such desolation. . The Nazi cultivation of antisemitism worked not only to marginalize Jews, to keep the mind from lingering too long on where they kept disappearing to, but simultaneously gave baser instincts a target to fixate and build on. Urges for casual petty violence, normally inhibited by the law, were given legal sanction against Germany’s Jewish population; but violence, once unleashed,  is rather difficult to rein back in. That violence was not only physical, but psychological, eroding the civil soul;  Meyer's interviewees report how they were steadily compromised.  Merely conflicted when the Nazi campaigns were set in motion, torn by a sense that something was not right but unsure as to whether attacking the triumphant Party was worth it. That inaction only reinforced itself as Germans were slowly prised apart from conscience, either out of fear or moral sloth. Some values, like free speech directed against the government, were so new and existing only on the  periphery that when they disappeared their absence was as dimly noticed as that of the marginalized Jews. 

Though elements of the book are specific to Germany, the study of man compromised by rule is more generally applicable. Meyer believes the veneration of Hitler was tied to the German veneration of the Kaiser, but what society has been spared a leader who acts as if he is above  the law?  Even England, which prizes the Magna Carta and its supposition that the king is subject to laws greater than he, has had its Henry VIII;  in the modern age the power and influence of rulers is even more strongly expressed. Of general interest, too, is the conflict of moralities at play when the state is doing things that are obviously wrong. People want to do the 'right' thing,but so utterly basic is tribal preservation instinct that we hesitate; how can we attack 'ourselves'? We must separate the players in our minds, must create a new 'us' and relegate the government to the status of 'them', but that doesn't alter the fact that those enabling the evil are still our countrymen. The tide of fear and uncertainty has an awful strength, sweeping away all but the most strident stands.  It is a struggle not finished, and one which will never be finished;  we are never relieved from the possibility our instincts may lead us in the wrong direction. 

They Thought They Were Free strikes me a must-read for beginning to grasp the German mind and the human soul in its darkest hour. Historically it alters a bounty of insight into what Germans were enduring now, but can be applied to human travails through the centuries. 

Germany

Germany: Unraveling an Enigma
© 2000 Paul Nees
236 pages

If you follow European news, chances are good that you’ve heard the name Angela Merkel in recent months. Chancellor of Germany, her nation is the economic heart of Europe and essential to the eventual resolution of its debt crisis. And yet, just a little over two decades ago,  Germany was a divided nation…and a generation before, it lay in ruins, largely destroyed in a war which instigated, a war which casts a shadow over all Germans, even those born today. Germany has a long, storied, and troubled past: it is the land of Beethoven and Marx,  but also of Hitler and his ilk.  Europe and the world have been ravaged by Germany’s military in times past, but buoyed by its contributions to culture -- and it will likely continue to be a major player throughout the next century. All that in mind, what makes the Germans tick?

Paul Nee’s attempt to answer that question comes in the form of a cultural analysis, an exploration of the German character which seems to be largely written for Americans interested in doing business in America, but his guide concerns Germany as a whole. Even the latter two-thirds of the book focused on business and economics -- explaining both the social market system as well as Germany business culture, exploring practices in the United States and Germany which might be at variance with one another -- are fascinating, as they build on the general themes which Nees set forth at the opening. There, he explores the German mind, elaborating on convictions that most Germans share. He not only identifies the concepts, but demonstrates how they are interwoven throughout Germany society. In the section titled "Ordnung muss Sein", for instance, he shows how the concept of good order manifests itself not only in politics, but in the way people relate to their possessions  a shoddily maintained car is unthinkable. The picture of the Germans which emerges from the book is that of a intense, serious, and passionate people.

Nees' book is similar to Sixty Million Frenchman Can't Be Wrong, which tries to explain France to Americans. Nees is (suitably, for his subject), more "solid": he concentrates on a few ideas and explores them thoroughly.  Although seemingly targeted toward businessmen, its thorough thoughtfulness recommends it to anyone with a curiosity about Germany.

The Good German

The Good German
© 2001 Joseph Kanon
512 pages

Berlin, summer 1945. The heart of the most infamous empire in history lies in ruins, battered by bombs and ravaged block by block by Russian artillery.  Its contents sacked and its people abused by the victorious Soviet army, nothing remains but rubble, piles of bodies, and broken spirits. The allies of World War 2 are meeting for the Potsdam conference, but such a story is not the reason why reporter Jacob Gesimar has come. Gesimar lived in Berlin years ago, before war forced him to exit, and he visits the sad metropolis not to gloat in victory or take in the spectre like a tourist, but to look for the girl he left behind. In the opening ours of the conference, an American body washes up on a Berlin lakeshore -- the body of a man alive only hours before, who stood beside Gesimar as they flew into Berlin together. One man's death is of no interest to the allies, but Gesimar works to solve the mystery of it by himself -- if nothing else, there's a story to be had.

The Good German is a busy novel, for the man's death is not an isolated incident. More will follow, and as Geismar continues to work his way through an intelligence network of retired Berlin cops and black marketeers, he begins to realize there is a story of international proportions building around him -- the start of another war, and he may perish with its opening shots. The "busy-ness" intensifies throughout the novel: plot twists and general action multiply with every chapter, but Joseph Kanon is spinning another mystery besides, having Gesimar ask more questions: how could the beloved Berlin of his youth have given itself over to be Hitler's capital? How could his neighbors, good people all, become Nazis and willing participants in one of the most horrific exercises in human history, the Holocaust?  The questions lie over the setting like a cloud of dust, ever-haunting Jacob and the reader, especially once multiple plot threads converge and those questions become personal.

The Good German is definitely readable: the immediate postwar setting is unique. I don't know of any other novels which take place so soon after the peace: Berlin is literally lying in ruins, and the Allies are only just organizing their occupation. It's depressing, but more depressing is the fact that such savagery could rise in Germany, the land of "poets, thinkers, and storytellers": barbarism from civilization.  The novel was best when Jacob grappled with these questions, as he did throughout. The bulk of the novel is its mystery, which turns the novel into an action-thriller by the end, but it grew so complicated that I lost interest.  The plot of a novel is almost like a musical piece: there are various elements at work -- some subtle, some obvious -- and pacing is critical. As the plot grows, the number of elements at play multiplies, and a good thriller may read like a jazz piece sounds -- intense, active, exciting.  The Good German was so over-busy, though, that it seemed like noise by the time I was finished. I would still recommend it for the reflective aspects, however.