WEBVTT - Part One: How Nice, Normal People Made The Holocaust Possible 0:00:02.080 --> 0:00:05.960 It's Behind the Bastards, the only podcast where we have 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:08.560 to edit out large chunks of it because of the 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:11.920 number of veiled threats I make towards social media. CEOs 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:16.040 my guest today to talk about some of the worst 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:19.440 people in all of history. Uh is my my good friend, 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:24.120 one of my favorite stand up comedians and fellow podcast 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:27.960 ear like Musketeer. It spelt like musketeer, but the podcast 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:32.760 Sophia Alexandra. Yeah, I'm so happy to be here. Thank 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:35.479 you for having me. Thank you, Sophia for being here. 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:39.200 How are you doing today? You know, just smiling ear ear, 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:43.800 smiling ear to ear. Sophia, how do you how do 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:49.479 you feel about Nazis? Um? Well, are they hot? I 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:54.000 mean statistically some of them where yes? Of course, still 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:57.480 a no for me, still a no, a no. Okay, okay, 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:00.080 that's a bold, bold stance for you to take you. 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:03.200 Thank you so much. I am braver than than the president, 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:07.840 that's for sure. Yeah, yeah, that's for sure. So you know, 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:11.800 one of the few nice things about the last couple 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:14.880 of months, which have broadly sucked, is that like a 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:19.520 whole bunch of mainstream news sites and pundits, uh and 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:24.360 and influencers and whatnot who were like making fun of 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:27.800 folks like me who were worried about, you know, the 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:32.320 whole fascism thing. Um are now are now talking seriously about, 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:35.560 like this is pretty fascist. A lot of the stuff 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:37.520 that's going on seems like we're in a bad place, 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:41.240 like the Atlantics running articles and ship on you know that. 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:44.759 Um So that's been nice that, like people are taking 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:48.920 the rise of fascism in America more seriously. Um And 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:52.400 except for like, this is the reaction that would have 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:57.520 been appropriate like four years old, four years ago, and 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:02.360 now is just so underwhelmed ing and so much less 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:07.000 than what we need that it's almost negligible. Yeah yeah, yeah, 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:09.160 I mean I'm not giving them credit, but at least 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:13.799 at least people aren't like calling you like a doomsayer 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:16.840 or whatever for for being like, hey, this kind of 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:19.160 seems like what was happening in Germany back in the thirties. 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:22.000 You'll remember Germany back in the thirties, what happened there. 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:26.240 The truth is, people don't they just remember, how like 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.320 the haircuts, Yeah, that's why we did, you know. And 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:31.280 one of the earlier episodes we did on this show 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:33.840 was about like the non Nazi bastards who helped Hitler 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:36.720 rise to power UM, which was based on a really 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:38.560 good book that people should still read called The Death 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:40.640 of Democracy, and kind of at the time when I 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:42.760 put that together, I thought it was really important that 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:47.320 people understand how um, like multicultural and progressive the Weimar 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.239 Republic was, and how that sort of a place turned 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.280 to totalitarian is m because I think it's possible for 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:56.919 any democracy, no matter how progressive, with like the right 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:01.680 number of bad years, and we've certainly had some bad years. UM. 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:04.000 So the thing I wanted to do today, though, like 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.600 that episode focused a lot on politicians, on like you know, 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:11.040 high ranking conservative politicians, on members of the aristocracy, on 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:14.560 like you know, left wing politicians, and like like the leaders, 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:16.920 like the different leaders of political parties, and like the 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.960 decisions they made that allowed Hitler to to get into 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:25.679 power UM, And I want to focus on I want 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:28.160 to focus on a different group of people today who 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:31.560 were who were as responsible for letting Hitler do what 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:35.200 he did, but who weren't a lot of them, Like 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:37.600 we don't even really know the names of the individuals, 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:39.760 and it's not really important because what we're talking about 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:44.280 today are the little Nazis, the rank and file fascists 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:46.960 who voted Hitler into office and gave him their support, 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:49.400 because I think there's a lot we can learn about 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:53.320 our own modern fascists. And again, not like the not 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:55.640 the proud boys and stuff, not the people taking to 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:57.880 the streets and fighting, but the people who are like willing, 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:01.360 who will who would support President Trump not just in 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:04.760 re election, but in throwing people into camps and you know, 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:08.280 re educating or killing his ideological and enemies. Like the 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:12.000 kind of people who wouldn't stand out on the street 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:15.080 and risk their lives for a fascist regime, but would 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:18.200 kind of stand back and let it happen and give 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:20.760 it just enough of their support that it's able to 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:22.599 go the rest of the distance. We're talking about those 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.640 kind of people today, and we're talking about those kind 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:28.239 of people from the Nazi regime, like the the little 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:31.400 Nazis is a is a term that I'm actually stealing 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.480 from a very controversial book by an author named Milton 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:38.479 Sanford Meyer. Um and Meyer's book was probably the first 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:42.359 postwar investigation into how and whine normal German citizens joined 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:44.880 the Nazi Party. So it's not a book again about 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:48.800 like the proud boy equivalence, the fascist street paramilitaries who 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:52.080 helped Hitler rise to prominence. It mostly deals with like 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:56.360 bakers and teachers and like policemen who decided pretty late 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:59.719 in the game to to support Hitler and help him 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:02.279 do the things that he did. So that's who we're 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:04.919 talking about today, is the is the little Nazis. And 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:08.279 I think people will recognize a lot of comparisons, um 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:10.960 between those folks and some people they may know in 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:15.840 their daily lives. I think it's a little bit hilarious 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:19.119 when people talk about, like when people would talk about 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:23.680 Nazis like like during the forties and then people just 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:25.799 went along with them and they'd be like, I could 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:30.400 never do that. And now fast forward to today, like 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.200 those are the same people that won't even fucking read 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:37.080 a proper article or you know, vote or you know, 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:41.520 do anything that might be helpful for anyone sign a petition. 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:44.560 I don't fucking know, you know, Yeah, yeah, I mean 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.120 it's it's um So that passivity, I guess, is what 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:51.680 I'm saying. Is it We all have that to some degree. 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:54.359 It's it's a thing you have to like that. It 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:58.320 is absolutely that passivity is what lets the Nazis get 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:01.160 away with the things that they get away with, exactly. 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:04.520 And we'll be talking about those kind of folks too. 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:06.680 We'll be talking, particularly at the end of part two 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:10.320 about the folks who supported the Nazis even though they 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:14.360 weren't Nazi voters, you know, supported them by their inaction, UM, 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:16.680 because I think that's important to talk about. But a 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:19.799 lot of what we're chatting about are folks, like folks 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:21.919 who kind of the kind of people who would have 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:25.440 said something along the lines of, well, I don't like Hitler, um, 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:27.920 but I don't you know, I think that I don't 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:29.800 think that he's very serious about a lot of this 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:32.440 anti Jew stuff. I think that'll that will die down 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:34.520 once he wins, and like you know, he'll be good 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:38.280 for the economy. And you've heard the people who are 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:40.760 making the same arguments in nine three or whatever that 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:45.200 like folks made in sixteen and are continuing to make UM. 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.760 And that's why I think I think UM. Milton Myer's 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:53.000 book is so valuable because it basically what he did 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:57.200 is he traveled to Germany immediately after the war UM, 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:00.480 and he made he befriended a bunch of members of 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.280 the Nazi Party, and not again, not like people who'd 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:06.080 had any stance, but like normal working class people who 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:08.360 just joined the party and voted for Hitler. And he 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.680 was he was a Milton was a Jewish journalist, um. 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:13.600 Which he didn't talk about the fact that he was 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:15.560 Jewish to them, but he like he made that that's 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:18.880 not really gonna be something that people loved here in 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:22.680 the Nazi Party meetings, He's like, I mean, one of 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:25.400 the things that might be most unsettling, and we'll get 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:26.560 to this, is that, like, I think a lot of 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:28.960 them probably wouldn't have cared all that much because that 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:32.040 wasn't their motivation for supporting the Nazis, which again is 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:33.760 one of the more unsettling things about them, is the 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:37.200 number of people who enabled the Holocaust despite not really 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:43.080 having super like like organized anti Semitic feelings themselves. Um Like, 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.600 that's one of the most unsettling things about the Holocaust 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:48.880 is the number of people who enabled it to happen 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:54.000 despite not particularly wanting it to happen, um. Which is 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:55.680 kind of one of the things we don't talk about 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.360 enough when we talk about the Holocaust, because that's almost 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:01.200 even scarier to me than the people who whose hatred 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:05.080 and racism moved them to take action. It's the people who, 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:07.600 like you, knew this was wrong and you let it 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:11.440 happen um or you even helped in some way. I don't. 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:14.160 We'll talk about that too, So let's cut straight to 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:18.200 the chase. Though. Are there dead babies in this episode? 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:21.640 There's the insinuation of dead babies in this episode because 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:23.800 a lot of babies died in the Holocaust, but we 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:25.800 don't there's not. Well, actually no, there is. There is. 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:27.920 There is direct baby killing. Yes, what will be talking 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:30.880 graphically about baby killing in part two? Actually? Yes, start 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:35.360 a bit. This is how you get me. I can't 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:37.960 write a Sophia episode without some dead babies in it. 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:43.840 You can't look. It's Sophie grinning over there. I think 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:52.199 she remembered before I did this. Yeah, So when when 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:55.240 When Meyers set out to write this book and you know, 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:57.680 started making all these friends, his goal was to sketch 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:01.800 out quote the delineation of the personal conditions under which 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:04.959 the little man anywhere becomes involved in the development of 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:08.040 totalitarian evil, and the ways in which he assumes or 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.800 avoids moral responsibility for his participation in it. Which I 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:14.920 think is a really good premise for a book, um, 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:17.360 especially consider he was kind of the first guy to 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:19.199 look into this. So he moves to Jeremany right after 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:21.880 the war. He makes good friends with like ten male 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:25.040 former members of the Nazi Party, and he titles his 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:29.040 book about them they Thought They Were Free. And we'll 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:30.800 talk a little bit about that title later, and I 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:32.960 think it's one of my favorite, my favorite titles for 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:36.440 any book. UM. Now, there's a lot of good critiques 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:39.520 about Meyer's book, and we'll talk about as fuck. It's 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:43.959 incredibly ominous, and it incredibly pointed, and it makes a 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:47.360 very important point that again we'll talk to in a bit. Um. 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:50.520 There's there's good criticisms of the book, a number of 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:52.880 them being that, like, for one thing, he only talks 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:55.200 to men, right, which is like kind of a bias 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:58.360 of the time, um, which is is definitely a flaw 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.480 in the book. He also Tinman isn't a huge chunk 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:03.320 of people, but you get a lot of detail into 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:06.040 why those ten people did you know, the things that 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:08.840 they did, which I think is really valuable. UM. And 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:10.800 you know, they're ten people from one town, so you 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:13.640 can't assume it's like a super broad It doesn't give 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.920 us the broader picture on on all of the different 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.640 reasons people picked the Nazi Party. So we'll be going 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:21.400 to I have a lot of outside evidence, a lot 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:23.400 of things besides the book that we'll be talking about 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:25.760 that sort of give us that broader picture. Um. I 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:28.040 want to start our episode with a brief overview of 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:31.280 Meyer's life because I think it's really interesting. Uh. He 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:33.520 was born in Chicago in nineteen o eight and he 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:35.840 studied at the University of Chicago, but he got kicked 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.880 out before graduating because he was caught hucking beer bottles 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:41.680 at the dean from like the top floor of his dormitory. 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:45.800 Me a bad boy. Yeah. When he was questioned about it, 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:48.839 he was like, my only regret is I didn't hit him. 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:54.079 You gotta love the guy. Um. So he drops out 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.240 of college and he gets a job in journalism shortly thereafter, 0:10:57.559 --> 0:10:59.320 and he, you know, he does a number of things. 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:01.200 He works for her paper, so he gets some like 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:05.480 muckraking kind of like populist sort of experience. Um. And 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:08.120 he actually he winds up being the guy who comes 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:11.400 up with the actual like the lion that is every 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.520 journalist job description today. He's the guy who convinced the 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:18.720 phrase speak truth to power, Like that's that's Milton Meyer. Um, 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.080 he's the first person to like put those words together, 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:24.560 which I think still is the best job the best 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:27.760 like job summary you can have as a journalist. That's 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:31.120 not came up with breast cancer, thirst trap, but that doesn't. 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:34.080 That's pretty good to friend as much. I have that 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:38.240 tattooed on my body. Also, Yeah, oh is it? Is 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:39.640 it where you said you were going to get it 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:43.120 above Oh yeah, no, yep, yep, yep, yep, not on 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:45.480 the ankle, because you're going to get it under the dick, 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:48.240 and then he decided to go above that the under 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:52.040 the dick was too full of other tattoos. Smart. I have, 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:55.320 oddly enough the opening to slaughter House five, which was 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:59.400 maybe a poor choice in retrospect, a lot of words 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:02.360 to it on there. So it's your way of telling 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:05.320 us you are huge, because that's not what needs to 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:10.360 happen during this Nazi reckoning episode. Robert Evans, Yeah, I'm 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:12.640 not the president. I'm not going to turn something serious 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:16.240 into talking about my dick. So Milton was fundamentally a 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:18.800 believer in human rights and he felt that people should 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:21.160 fight like hungry dogs to maintain those rights in the 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.240 face of state oppression they thought they were free. Came 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:27.080 out of his confusion that citizens of the Weimar Republic, 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:30.200 which is again a very progressive state, would give up 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:32.760 their rights so readily. Like he was kind of baffled 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:36.240 by this, and he just personally needed an answer. And 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:38.680 for his time, you know, he had his biases, like 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:41.320 we just talked about, not really talking, not talking to 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.320 women to any meaningful extent, but he was also a 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:47.400 pretty enlightened soul for his time. He repeatedly compares the 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:50.679 bigotry paced faced by European Jews to Jim crow um, 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:52.720 to the oppression of black people in the United States 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:55.920 to the internment of Japanese Americans. Um So, he's he's 0:12:55.920 --> 0:13:00.120 a guy who's who's looking. He's not, He's he's very oh, 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:02.800 kind of what the United States represents in his eyes, 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:05.320 but he's certainly not blind to its faults, and he 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.000 sees that like, oh, a fascism comes to the United States, 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:10.920 it will be based in bigotry against these different groups. 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:14.360 That I think is pretty accurate. Um So he's he's 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:16.800 he's I think a guy who's worth paying attention to 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.439 um And I really, like I said earlier that like 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.080 I like his definition of little men, of of what 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:25.520 like a little man is in a culture. And I'm 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:28.160 gonna quote from that now. He's talking about the friends 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:31.800 that he made to write this book. These ten men 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:35.840 were little men. Only Hair Hildebrant, the teacher, had any 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:38.959 substantial status in the community. And when I say little men, 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:41.120 I mean not only the men for whom the mass 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:45.120 media and the campaign speeches are everywhere designed, but specifically 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:49.000 and sharply stratified societies like Germany, the men who think 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.840 of themselves in that way. Every one of my ten 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:55.920 Nazi friends, including Hildebrant, spoke again and again during our 0:13:55.960 --> 0:14:00.599 discussions of we little people. We have that in the 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:02.720 United States, don't we do a different extent. We don't 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:04.760 call it, they don't call themselves the little people, but 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:08.760 everyday Americans, real Americans, like that's our version of that. 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:14.320 Working class heroes. Yeah, working class heroes. We have our 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.000 version of that. You know, it's important not to over 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:19.920 extend comparisons because Germany very different society, a lot of 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:21.960 stuff going on that we don't have going on, just 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:24.200 like we but like you can you can see a 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:27.880 line like you know, people who see themselves that way. 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:32.080 I think that reminds me of the fact that basically, like, uh, 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:35.960 when you don't have a lot, yeah, the one thing 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:39.360 you can like cling to is your identity. Yeah, exactly 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:43.880 is your identity. So if you see yourself as constantly 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:45.760 getting like the short une of the stick, you would 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:48.200 think of yourself as like, yeah, I'm the everyday little man, 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:52.200 you know, and it's it's it's those little men number one. 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:54.600 As Mayer points out, it's the little men that all 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:57.960 of the Nazi electoral campaigns were focused on. They wanted 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:00.600 to win the little men, and it's a little men 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:05.680 who made the Holocaust possible. You know, if you have 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:08.640 a couple of hundred or a couple of thousand people 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:12.240 who want to kill all of whatever ethnic group, the Jews, 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:15.360 the immigrants, like whatever, if you have a few hundred 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:17.440 or a few thousand of them in a society, the 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:19.520 most they're gonna do is commit some hate crimes, which 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:21.680 are terrible, but they're not going to be able to 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:24.080 actually carry out a genocide if there's not a few 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:28.160 million people who get on board just enough to let 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:30.200 it happen, you know, And that that's why I like 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:35.680 Meyer's book. That's why I think it's important. So yeah, again, 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:38.080 not a perfect book, but I think a valuable one. Now, 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:41.240 I want to start this episode by busting a myth, 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:42.840 and we just talked about it, and it's the myth 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:45.360 that every person who would joined the Nazi Party or 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:50.080 supported them actively hated Jewish people. Um. And I think 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:53.160 it's important to counter that, not to give the Nazis credit, 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:56.320 because I think it actually condemns those individuals. More. The 0:15:56.680 --> 0:15:59.720 thing that's important for people to understand is that you 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:03.160 don't little men and women don't have to hate in 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:07.760 order to enable genocides. Benign indifference is all that's necessary. 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:09.960 And this is really well illustrated by the story of 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:13.440 one of myers Nazi friends, a former bank clerk named Kessler. Now, 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:15.840 Kessler was late to join the Nazi Party, and he 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:18.760 was never a full convert to the ideology. As late 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:21.800 as nineteen thirty eight, he maintained a fairly close friendship 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:24.640 with a local Jewish man named Rosenthal, who had once 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:27.560 been his boss, the director of his bank. Now, the 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:30.520 day before Christallnacht, when the synagogue in their city was 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:33.119 burnt to the ground, as were so many other synagogues 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:36.720 in Germany. Kessler told his Jewish friend that quote, with 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:39.720 men like me and the party, things will be better, 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:45.080 You'll see. Um can we say though that this has 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:50.360 a real have I have one black friend kind of vibe? 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:52.760 You know? Sure, like I have a Jewish frenz. See 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:56.600 doesn't really seem like it's great if you can. It's 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:00.240 one guy you know that's Jewish and that's fun in it. 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:03.520 That's that's not good. It's certainly not good. And again 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:05.960 I'm not trying to like defend these Nazis by saying 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.200 that they didn't actively hate. The point is that, um, 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:12.359 it was it was it was people like Kessler who 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:14.520 and and this guy like that might got to know 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.040 him pretty well. He talked about his friendship with this 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:18.960 man a decent amount, and like talked about to the 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.080 extent that like you can you can see that Kessler 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:25.760 felt guilty about his party affiliation and was trying to 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:29.440 assuage it with with with comments like this, which means 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:32.160 there was number one, an extent to which he knew 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.400 what he was doing was wrong and he was kind 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.080 of trying to wash the slate clean in his own 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:40.800 head by saying like, no, by joining this party, I 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.960 can pull it back towards a rational side of things, 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:46.320 right Like that was what this guy had to tell 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.200 himself in order to kind of deal with the guilt 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:52.399 that he knew he was supporting something bad. Um. And 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:54.199 I think we know a lot of people who are 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:58.200 in that position in our country today. Um, I'm related 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:01.959 to some of them. Uh. Kessler believed quote that has 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:04.399 more and more decent citizens joined it. It being the 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:06.920 Nazi party, it would certainly join it for the better. 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:09.960 And Meyer goes on to write, quote, my friends meant 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.959 what they said. They calculated wrong, but they meant what 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:16.000 they said. And the Moral and Religious bank clerk was 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:19.639 on the basis of that mortally wrong calculation to preach 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:24.080 the most barbarous paganism and the decent bourgeoisie teacher who 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:27.560 was to teach Nazi literature from Nazi textbooks provided by 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:30.639 the Nazi school board. Teachers teach what they are told 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:33.040 to teach, or quit, and to quit a public post 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:35.720 mint in the early years of the Third Reich, unemployment 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.280 later when one had an anti Nazi political past and 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:41.560 meant concentration camp. Once you were in the party, said 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:44.240 his friend, the baker, who doesn't say he ever wanted 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:47.600 to get out. You didn't get out easily. And again 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:49.480 you see what he's kind of the point he's making 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:51.400 there is that like these people talk about how hard 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:53.960 it is to get out, but they didn't try. And 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:55.760 this is one of the things that if you that 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:57.760 that I think because of when he was writing this, 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:01.359 Meyer didn't know. But there's actually it's over emphasized the 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:04.119 degree to which people would have potentially faced punishment for 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:08.680 refusing to take part in a in an anti Jewish bigotry. 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.919 There was not a single leader in the Wehrmacht, not 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:15.880 a single officer in CEO, who was punished for refusing 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:18.280 to take part in a massacre. And some of them did. 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:23.120 The ones who participated did so because they were scared 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:26.480 that it would harm their ability to get promoted, or 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.480 because of peer pressure. But like nobody, it actually is 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:32.239 a myth that members like you were punished if you 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:35.000 actively tried to help people hide. Let's just say it 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:39.080 was frowned upon, but it wasn't. You wouldn't like the 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:42.760 people who participated weren't in fear of their lives if 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:47.879 they didn't participate. There's no saying it wasn't prohibited. They weren't. 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:51.920 Like if you do this, you will suffer with this. 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:55.959 It was, Oh, it's frowned upon, so probably not do it. 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:58.240 Oh do it because it will make me unpopular to 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:01.240 not do it. Like and again, that's much more unsettling 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:05.359 than these people all being radicalized automatons who are just 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:08.800 lockstep in favor of Nazism. Like, it's so much less 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.080 scary to me that somebody could be like a straight 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:13.439 up member of the s S and just onboard for 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:16.000 genocide than somebody than that somebody could help with the 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:18.679 genocide because like, well, people won't like me if I 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:22.840 don't like that. That's way scarier to me. I don't know, 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:26.960 um and just real, yeah, and real it speaks to 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:30.159 something ugly in all of us, because I think a 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:32.480 lot of people would do that. I mean, the whole 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:35.880 idea behind the parties that you're joining a group of 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.520 people and that gives you something that you don't get 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:43.159 when you're on your own. You know, that can be 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:47.480 positive or negative depending on what the party you're joining is. 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:50.960 And when I read all these stories because there's a 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:53.000 few of them, and Myer's book about people who thought 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:55.639 that joining about like kind of more moderate folks who 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:57.919 thought that joining the Nazi Party would pull it in 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:03.640 a better direction. I'm reminded of General mad Dog Maddis now. 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:06.520 I think you remember, like back when he first got 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:08.760 appointed Secretary of Defense. They are all these think pieces 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:11.080 about like how good this would be and about how 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:13.720 this would like make Trump more moderate and and and 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:16.880 pull him towards the sides side of rationality. Uh. There's 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:20.280