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

"It is a fascinating story and a deeply moving one. And it is a story that should make people pause and think—think not only about the Germans, but also about themselves."—Ernest S. Pisko, Christian Science Monitor

"Writing as a liberal American journalist of German descent and Jewish religious persuasion Mr. Mayer aims—and in the opinion of this reviewer largely succeeds—at scrupulous fairness and unsparing honesty. It is this that gives his book its muscular punch."—Walter L. Dorn, Saturday Review

"Once again the German problem is at the center of our politics. No better, or more humane, or more literate discussion of its underlying nature could be had than in this book."—August Heckscher, New York Herald Tribune

Milton Sanford Mayer (1908-1986) was a journalist and educator. He was the author of about a dozen books.

He studied at the University of Chicago from 1925 to 1928 but he did not earn a degree; in 1942 he told the Saturday Evening Post that he was "placed on permanent probation for throwing beer bottles out a dormitory window." He was a reporter for the Associated Press, the Chicago Evening Post, and the Chicago Evening American. He wrote a monthly column in the Progressive for over forty years. He won the George Polk Memorial Award and the Benjamin Franklin Citation for Journalism.

He worked for the University of Chicago in its public relations office and lectured in its Great Books Program. He also taught at the University of Massachusetts, Hampshire College, and the University of Louisville. He was an adviser to Robert M. Hutchins when Hutchins founded the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions.

Mayer was a conscientious objector during World War II but after the war traveled to Germany and lived with German families. Those experiences informed his most influential book They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45.

Kronenberg

November 9, 1638

November 9, 1938

1. Ten Men

2. The Lives Men Lead

3. Hitler and I

4. "What Would You Have Done?"

5. The Joiners

6. The Way To Stop Communism

7. "We Think with Our Blood"

8. The Anti-Semitic Swindle

9. "Everybody Knew." "Nobody Knew"

10. "We Christians Had the Duty"

11. The Crimes of the Losers

12. "That's the Way We Are"

13. But Then It Was Too Late

14. Collective Shame

15. The Furies: Heinrich Hildebrandt

16. The Furies: Johann Kessler

17. The Furies: Furor Teutonicus

Part II. The Germans

Heat Wave

18. There Is No Such Thing

19. The Pressure Cooker

20. "Peoria Über Alles"

21. New Boy in the Neighborhood

22. Two New Boys in the Neighborhood

23. "Like God in France"

24. But a Man Must Believe in Something

25. Push-Button Panic

Part III. Their Cause and Cure

The Trial

November 9, 1948

26. The Broken Stones

27. The Liberators

28. The Re-educators and Re-educated

29. The Reluctant Phoenix

30. Born Yesterday

31. Tug of Peace

32. "Are We the Same as the Russians?"

33. Marx Talks to Michel

34. The Uncalculated Risk

Acknowledgments