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

Book by Milton Mayer · 3 quotes · National Socialism, Nazis, Intellectualism

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They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45 Quotes

“In the years of its rise the movement little by little brought the community's attitude toward the teacher around from respect and envy to resentment, from trust and fear to suspicion. The development seems to have been inherent; it needed no planning and had none. As the Nazi emphasis on nonintellectual virtues (patriotism, loyalty, duty, purity, labor, simplicity, "blood," "folkishness") seeped through Germany, elevating the self-esteem of the "little man," the academic profession was pushed from the very center to the very periphery of society. Germany was preparing to cut its own head off. By 1933 at least five of my ten friends (and I think six or seven) looked upon "intellectuals" as unreliable and, among those unreliables, upon the academics as the most insidiously situated.”

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Book:They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45
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“National Socialism was a revulsion by my friends against parliamentary politics, parliamentary debate, parliamentary government—against all the higgling and the haggling of the parties and the splinter parties, their coalitions, their confusions, and their conniving. It was the final fruit of the common man's repudiation of "the rascals". Its motif was, "Throw them all out.”

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Book:They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45
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