I majored in Germanic languages, and read a lot of German literature and studied German history. If you had told the average German of 1928 about the coming war and Holocaust, they would have said “that can’t happen here.” Starting about 1955, when they were ready to confront what they had done, the main theme of German literature and theater was “how could we have let this happen?”
After getting my undergraduate degrees, I went to law school. In my first semester, Professor Harvey turned a lecture over to a Holocaust survivor who told us what he had to endure to survive Auschwitz. When he was done speaking, Professor Harvey took the podium and said “your duty as lawyers is to make sure this never happens again.” He was right; the legal profession in Germany failed to uphold the Rule of Law and the rights of the individual. That’s because in 1928 they all thought “that can’t happen here.”
After I left the lecture I mingled with my fellow students. Guess what they all said.
By the way, that was September, 1981.
The best I can find when searching for the reasoning for the German mind of the era is “Normalcy Bias”.
But that doesn’t help much; doesn’t give a plan of action.
Very interesting post. You were fortunate to have made a highly respectable choice and to appreciate an important and fine education.
Public education and academia has mostly groomed America for collapse, by our own democratic, ignorant hand. Academia laughs and our Kardashian nation rules. Sad, isn’t it?