Nika’s Reviews > Defying Hitler > Status Update

It is even worse that comradeship relieves men of responsibility for their actions, before themselves, before God, before their consciences. They do what all their comrades do. They have no choice. They have no time for thought (except when they unfortunately wake up at night). Their comrades are their conscience and give absolution for everything, provided they do what everybody else does.

The more distant of two evils always seems the lesser. It may not be the lesser in reality.

Incidentally, it is typical of the early years of the Nazi regime that the whole façade of everyday life remained virtually unchanged. The cinemas, theaters, and cafés were full. Couples danced in the open air and in the dance halls. People strolled down the streets. The Nazis used this to great effect in their propaganda.

Real ideas must as a rule be simplified to the level of a child’s understanding if they are to arouse the masses to historic actions. A childish illusion, fixed in the minds of all children born in a certain decade and hammered home for four years, can easily reappear as a deadly serious political ideology twenty years later.