Buy used:

$28.97

FREE delivery: Monday, June 14 Details

Fastest delivery: Sunday, June 13
Order within 8 hrs and 53 mins Details

Select delivery location

Used: Acceptable | Details

Sold by TheBestForYouAlways

Fulfilled by Amazon

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Add to List

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 3 images

Follow the Author

Milton Sanford Mayer

They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 2nd Revised ed. Edition

by Milton Mayer (Author)

164 ratings

First published in 1955, They Thought They Were Free is an eloquent and provocative examination of the development of fascism in Germany. 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.

“What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.”--from Chapter 13, “But Then It Was Too Late”

ISBN-10

0226511928
ISBN-13

978-0226511924
Edition

2nd Revised ed.
Publisher

University of Chicago Press
Publication date

May 19, 1966
Language

English
Dimensions

5.25 x 1.3 x 8 inches
Print length

346 pages
See all details

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Milton Mayer
275
Paperback
$17.59
Sinclair Lewis
2,151
Paperback
$8.49
Milton Mayer
2
Paperback
$316.31
Timothy Snyder
453
Paperback
$16.59
Benjamin Carter Hett
427
Hardcover
$23.94
Sebastian Haffner
393
Paperback
$6.38

More items to explore

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Anne Applebaum
799
Paperback
$13.69
Anne Applebaum
692
Paperback
$15.29
Richard J. Evans
573
Paperback
$13.99
Orlando Figes
313
Paperback
$25.80
Kurt A. Raaflaub
305
Paperback
$21.49
Christopher R. Browning
2,470
Paperback
$9.99

Explore similar books

Tags that will help you discover similar books. 12 tags

Results for:

Page 1 of 1Start overPage 1 of 1

It Can't Happen Here (Signet Classics)
2,151
Paperback
$8.49
The Origins of Totalitarianism
712
Paperback
$14.59
Propaganda
1,328
Paperback
$13.46
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
3,849
Hardcover
$30.29
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
2,096
Paperback
$15.49
They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45
275
Paperback
$17.59
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
15,993
Paperback
$5.42
The Seven Day Switch: A Novel
558
Kindle Edition
$4.99
These Tangled Vines: A Novel
14,753
Kindle Edition
$4.99
Last Day
14,351
Kindle Edition
$1.99
The Last Thing He Told Me: A Novel
9,055
Kindle Edition
$12.99
Unspeakable Things
14,824
Kindle Edition
$1.99
The Strange Journey of Alice Pendelbury
5,386
Kindle Edition
$4.99
Wall of Silence
8,273
Kindle Edition
$1.99
Project Hail Mary: A Novel
10,815
Kindle Edition
$14.99
Regretting You
8,598
Kindle Edition
$1.99
The Venice Sketchbook: A Novel
12,236
Kindle Edition
$5.99
Maybe Later (The Spearman Family Book 1)
1,243
Kindle Edition
$0.00
A Summer of Surprises
2,168
Kindle Edition
$4.99
Beneath a Scarlet Sky: A Novel
50,379
Kindle Edition
$1.99
Magical Midlife Madness: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (Leveling Up Book 1)
5,086
Kindle Edition
$2.99
Like Wind Against Rock: A Novel
2,688
Kindle Edition
$4.99
My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite Book 1)
23,405
Kindle Edition
$4.99
The Lost Girls of Devon
9,069
Kindle Edition
$1.99
The Groom Wager: A Romantic Comedy (Wrong Way Weddings Book 1)
902
Kindle Edition
$3.99
Loss Recovery (Alaskan Security-Team Rogue Book 1)
1,127
Kindle Edition
$3.99
The Next Wife
17,787
Kindle Edition
$4.99
Blindsided: A Best Friends to Lovers Standalone
972
Kindle Edition
$3.99
The Midnight Library: A Novel
80,684
Hardcover
$13.29
Shifting Sands (Lobster Bay Book 4)
1,671
Kindle Edition
$4.99

Where do clickable book tags come from?

Special offers and product promotions

Amazon Business: Make the most of your Amazon Business account with exclusive tools and savings. Login now

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Among the many books written on Germany after the collapse of Hitler's Thousand Year Reich, this book by Milton Mayer is one of the most readable and most enlightening."

(Hans Kohn New York Times Book Review)

"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)

About the Author

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.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Chicago Press; 2nd Revised ed. edition (May 19, 1966)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 346 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0226511928
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0226511924
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.3 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 1.3 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #560,389 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #315 in Political Ideologies
- #400 in Fascism (Books)
- #605 in Military History (Books)

Customer Reviews:
164 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload video

Products related to this item

Sponsored
Hide feedback

Page 1 of 1Start overPage 1 of 1

Customer reviews

5 star		77%
4 star		13%
3 star		5%
2 star		1%
1 star		4%

How are ratings calculated?

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Amazon Customer

"We all knew. Nobody knew." Says it all.

Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2017

Verified Purchase

When Mayer set out to discover how ordinary Germans, good people with families and unremarkable lives, could join the Nazi Party, there's no way he could have forseen the US in 2016.

His interviews with 10 German men gives the reader insight into the lives and decisions each made in joining the Nazi Party.

It's sad, it's chilling, and it's relevant. Mayer offers a glimpse into human nature, exposing why good people allow bad things to happen.

When asked how they basically ignored the Jewish Holocaust, one man replied, "We all knew. Nobody knew."

In the era of Trump and burgeoning fascism in the US, this book is a must read to help us all understand how people can embrace such evil.

University of Chicago is re-releasing the book this month (October 2017). Get the Kindle edition or pre-purchase the reprinting, but do read this book. It's one of the most important works of the 20th century with valuable lessons for those of us living in 21st century Fascist America.

38 people found this helpful

Helpful

delfring

A must read if you want to compare and contrast the Germans in the 30's and 40's to the USA after 9/11/01.

Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2016

Verified Purchase

Everyone should read this. Written in the 1950's, but provides a view toward how the common German dealt with the Nazis. The title is much more relevant today because we in the USA have our liberties being slowly taken away, just like the Nazis did to the German people from 1932 to 1945.

39 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kitty Axelson-Berry

Eye-opener about how the Nazi Party took over and controlled people

Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2017

Verified Purchase

Interviews with 10 older Germans who explain why they were supported the Nazis before and during World War II clarify, for me, much of how the German government took over the minds and hearts of "the little people." The Party improved the day-to-day lives of "regular Germans": jobs, safety, healthcare, recreation, positive group identity, positive self-identity. Everyone lived in their own daily lives, focussed on their own families. The methods used included: anti-academic, anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-gypsy, anti-gay propaganda; fear of recrimination, insularity, control of information, appeal to nationalism, tradition of obedience to government, low self-esteem, and greed (people were happy to appropriate Jewish assets). And, interestingly, the power of a declaration and vow, this time of loyalty to the Party.

20 people found this helpful

Helpful

LucMee

This book is a warning.

Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2019

Verified Purchase

This book is a warning. This book perfectly illustrates actions and situations that we people of the present should be paying extraordinary attention to. It’s constructed from interviews with ordinary Germans just after WWII. They talk about how incrementally and insidiously they were convinced that the ideology of the nazis was right and proper. How the ordinary fears of everyday working people were turned into nightmares. How people were picked out for ridicule and blame through lies and demagoguery for no other reason than to put a party and individual in power. This is a Book that should be required reading in every school in America. And every wanna be politician should have to read it too.

8 people found this helpful

Helpful

Michael Contario

Not a Scholarly Work, and a wasted opportunity

Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2019

Verified Purchase

Purchasing this book in 2015, three years later I felt now is as any time to finally read it. I liked the premise of Mayer interviewing 10 regular Germans, their path to corruption (with the acceptance of Nazism), and the blowback of their choices. Unfortunately, his book functions more of a political commentary on the 1950s with no clear direction. I wrongly assumed Mayer, being an educator later in life, would conduct his work as a scholarly piece. I was wrong. Imagine a journalist writing a book on the Baath Party, not based on facts but rather to sell copies pandering to sensationalism: "I have the real story right here! Buy my book and find out!"

Instead of interviewing his 10 "friends" in an organized fashion, he bounced around from person to person with no reason. I would have expected a minimum of ten sections of this book devoted to each "friend." I feel it was a reasonable assumption that the interview process would go something like:

The individual's background, the effect of the war reparations from the First World War in their lives, the introduction and appeal of Nazism, their path leading up to and during the Second World War, and finally their reflection.

None of this book is presented in this or any other organized way. Mayer essentially squandered a great resource, an unfiltered German perspective on their actions.

My resolve (or desperation to find some perspective on the "Why?") only carried me to finish half of this book. I feel Mayer wasted a fantastic opportunity to write a scholarly work into the decisions others made. As a non-fiction book he has failed.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

SSG Cedar

Useful but limited and outdated.

Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2016

Verified Purchase

The first part of the book is much better than the second part. The first is about the author's year talking to 10 men in a large town in a rural part of Germany shortly after World War II ended. The men had all become Nazis for various reasons. They were all "small men" as they described themselves. Why did they become Nazis and what did they think of their experience? At the time all still thought the Nazi movement had done good for Germany.

The second part is less useful. The author attempts to explain the "German character." He goes back to ancient Roman descriptions of this are of the country to show that the Germans never change. His conclusions are exactly what 30 years of British and American propaganda said about the "Germans." The difficulty of changing the German character is disproven by events after the '50s when this book was published.

The second and third sections are worth reading as long as you keep a skeptical attitude. I learned things about what American had done in Germany after the war which I did not know.

20 people found this helpful

Helpful

Twoeak

It is a long read and it seems to circle ...

Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2017

Verified Purchase

It is a long read and it seems to circle back a bit. The real impact is to listen to how Germans fell into the circumstance of a totalitarian government and to see how many parallels there are with today in America: desperation, pride, intimidation, grasping upon an insane despot in an attempt to climb out of their depression.

11 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Ronald W. Maron

....A direct comparison to present times

Reviewed in Canada on May 17, 2009

Verified Purchase

In spite of the fact that the translation of this text is less than perfect, this is a 'must read' for everyone. The parallels between the people of Nazi Germany and those under the US administration of 2000-20008 is striking. The high level of racism, the complacent attitudes towards national politics, the failure of both societies to become educated in national and world affairs and the sense of 'being too busy' with day-to-day life to involve oneself in matters much greater and larger than their trivial lives is stunning! No, the USA does not see itself as being powerless against its own government but when told, like Nazi Germany, that it is unpatriotic to speak out against its government, there is no difference in the results. Criminality, war crimes and corruption existed in both countries with little, or no, criticism of its leaders.
As was said in the famous Pogo cartoon; We have met the enemy and he is us.

2 people found this helpful

Dag Magnus Nielsen

Good, but to much authors interpretations

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 12, 2013

Verified Purchase

The book was interesting and fascinating, but in the laste half the Author goes haywire on his own interpretations og the German society. Long, speculative, passages (often quite good ones) clutters an otherwise exciting book.

One person found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Whitewash

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 21, 2017

Verified Purchase

Gave up before the end as it comes across as justifying the actions of "innocent" nazis