They Thought They Were Free

这不是一本控诉纳粹暴行的书，而是一份令人不安的诊断报告：普通人是如何一步步走进深渊的。作者以美国人的身份，采访十个德国平民——木匠、警察、知识分子——追问他们为何拥抱希特勒。全书最锋利的洞见在于那个反直觉的结论：不是纳粹制造了不自由，而是德国人早有的不自由催生了纳粹。它揭示了一种缓慢而隐蔽的机制：暴政从不以惊天动地的方式降临，而是由数百个'只是更糟一小点'的小步骤累积而成，等你回过神来，世界早已改变。它适合所有相信'这种事不会发生在自己身上'的人——因为当选择被一点点收走，我们甚至来不及察觉自己已不再自由。

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.