They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-1945

When I finally picked up this book from 1955 about the 1930s, I can't deny I had current events in mind. We look for echoes in history, to see how a society—or part of a society—could embrace authoritarianism, but what struck me most about this story was how specific it was. The most familiar elements of Nazi history—the atrocities and the leaders—are at a distance here; instead we have the story of ten "little men" (their own description) in a small German city, told by Mayer, an American reporter (and a Jew, which he never revealed to his subjects), who slowly got to know these "friends," a term that gathers a sharp edge of irony and even disgust, especially as he learns that few, if any, of them regret what they had been a part of.