Inside the mind of the Third Reich

Summary

Episode Summary: Inside the Mind of the Third Reich

Podcast Title: History Extra Podcast
Host/Author: Immediate Media
Episode Title: Inside the Mind of the Third Reich
Release Date: January 22, 2025

In this compelling episode of the History Extra Podcast, host Danny Byrd engages in an in-depth conversation with historian and filmmaker Lawrence Rees. Drawing from Rees's extensive research and latest book, 12 Warnings from History, the discussion delves into the psychological and social underpinnings that facilitated the rise and atrocities of the Nazi regime. The episode offers listeners a nuanced exploration of the human condition, the manipulation tactics employed by totalitarian regimes, and the enduring lessons history imparts.

The Value of Eyewitness Testimonies vs. Archival Material

Lawrence Rees emphasizes the complementary roles of eyewitness accounts and archival materials in understanding historical mentalities. Drawing from his background in documentary filmmaking, Rees recounts his experience interviewing individuals who lived under Nazi rule, including both perpetrators and victims.

"For me, this sense of liveness to it and connection... gave history this excitement."
— Lawrence Rees [01:55]

Rees illustrates the profound impact of personal narratives through anecdotes, such as speaking with elderly residents of Rasputin's home village, providing a vivid connection to historical events that archival data alone cannot convey.

Conversations with Former Nazis

Rees shares a revealing encounter from the early 1990s with a former Waffen SS member who later became a successful businessman. This individual's blatant glorification of the Third Reich and denigration of Jews highlight the complex psychological landscapes of those who supported the Nazi regime.

"It's that some duality to it... he was a perfectly impressive man, yet still held these views."
— Lawrence Rees [04:19]

This conversation underscores the unsettling reality that ordinary individuals can harbor deeply disturbing ideologies, challenging preconceived notions about Nazis.

12 Warnings from History: Relevance in the Modern World

Addressing contemporary global tensions, Rees discusses why his book, 12 Warnings from History, is pertinent today. Contrary to responding directly to current events, Rees aims to explore universal aspects of the human condition that transcend time.

"What I'm trying to talk about is the human condition. As long as there's human beings, there's a human condition."
— Lawrence Rees [06:17]

He critiques the simplistic interpretation of historical lessons, advocating for a more nuanced understanding that avoids broad generalizations.

Manipulation and the Nazi Power Strategy

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on how the Nazi regime utilized manipulation and entertainment as tools of power. Rees draws parallels between Nazi tactics and modern political strategies that foster an "us versus them" mentality.

"I hope what I'm laying out is a series of templates, a series of things to think about when you're looking around the modern world today."
— Lawrence Rees [09:01]

Rees intentionally refrains from directly comparing Nazis to specific modern entities, encouraging listeners to identify patterns themselves.

Targeting Youth: Vulnerability to Ideology

Rees explores the Nazi strategy of targeting young people, explaining the psychological reasons behind their susceptibility to extremist ideologies. Citing neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, he highlights the underdeveloped prefrontal cortex in individuals under 25, which affects their decision-making and susceptibility to persuasion.

"If you're a dictator, targeting younger people under 25... is a powerful way of developing passionate supporters."
— Lawrence Rees [11:43]

This insight underscores the regime's calculated approach to securing loyal followers by exploiting developmental stages.

Post-War Justifications and Hypocrisy

The conversation shifts to how former Nazis rationalized their actions post-World War II. Rees identifies common defense mechanisms, such as claiming ignorance about atrocities like Auschwitz or employing "whataboutism" to deflect moral accountability.

"They're deeply hypocritical... it's Victor's justice."
— Lawrence Rees [16:22]

Rees connects these strategies to broader human tendencies towards hypocrisy, noting their prevalence in modern political discourse.

Psychological Assessments of Nazi Leaders

Rees discusses the attempts by psychologists during the post-war trials to categorize Nazi leaders' personalities. He critiques early assessments that labeled Nazis as "murderous robots," arguing that such generalizations overlook individual variability and the complex interplay between personal traits and cultural influences.

"It's simplistic to say that... they've all got a Robotic tendency."
— Lawrence Rees [22:05]

He advocates for understanding the cultural and social contexts that shaped individual behaviors rather than relying on reductive psychological labels.

The Importance of Contextual Understanding

Rees underscores the necessity of studying the unique historical context of Nazi Germany to avoid oversimplification and cliches. He argues that without a deep understanding of the time and place, the atrocities committed can become mere historical tropes.

"We're all creatures of a particular time and a particular place... only by understanding that can you begin to understand how and why they're doing what they're doing."
— Lawrence Rees [25:12]

This perspective emphasizes the importance of contextualizing historical events to grasp their complexity fully.

Surprising Insights from Research

In researching his book, Rees was particularly struck by the role of the prefrontal cortex in shaping behaviors among young Nazis and the intricate group psychology that enabled widespread participation in atrocities. He challenges the notion of Nazis as mere "acting under orders," revealing the nuanced psychological struggles they faced.

"If they refuse to kill, they're taken away into the sidelines. They'd looked on as weak, but they don't lose their lives because they refuse to kill."
— Lawrence Rees [30:02]

This revelation highlights the internal conflicts and systemic structures that sustained the Nazi regime's brutality.

The Role of Public Support and Propaganda

Rees discusses the critical role of public support in Hitler's consolidation of power. He references Joseph Goebbels' call for the "mobilization of the mind," aiming to convert non-Nazi Germans into supporters through propaganda and societal pressure.

"They were hugely conscious that they wanted it... to create this sense that of the Volksgemeinschaft, the people's community, were all in it together."
— Lawrence Rees [30:11]

This strategy underscores the regime's sophisticated use of propaganda to foster unity and suppress dissent.

Ethical Considerations in Historical Analysis

Concluding the discussion, Rees warns against the pitfalls of psychoanalyzing individual Nazis, arguing that it can inadvertently minimize the collective horrors perpetrated by the regime. He emphasizes focusing on broader social and psychological trends rather than individual pathologies.

"It's slippery slope territory... labeling also leaves aside how accurate you can be when you've never met the people and the historical figures."
— Lawrence Rees [31:42]

This stance advocates for a responsible and contextual approach to historical analysis.

Final Thoughts

Lawrence Rees's 12 Warnings from History serves as a profound exploration of the psychological and social mechanisms that enabled one of history's darkest regimes. Through meticulous research and insightful analysis, Rees provides listeners with valuable lessons on the fragility of societal norms and the enduring relevance of historical awareness.

For those seeking a deeper understanding of Nazi Germany and its implications for the modern world, Rees is also leading a six-part masterclass on the History Extra website.

"I wish I could do more, but I don't know if it's done any good at all."
— Lawrence Rees [22:16]

This poignant reflection encapsulates the challenges and aspirations inherent in studying and teaching history's most harrowing chapters.

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This summary was prepared based on the transcript provided and aims to capture the essence of the podcast episode without including advertisements or non-content sections.

Transcript

[Lawrence Rees]

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[Danny Byrd]

Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine. What drives people to commit atrocities? Few periods in history confront this question as starkly as the rise and fall of the Nazis, whose crimes stand as a chilling testament to to humanity's capacity for darkness. In his latest book, historian and filmmaker Lawrence Rees ponders what we can learn by probing the psychological and social forces that enabled the cruelty of the Third Reich. And in today's episode, Danny Byrd speaks to him to find out more. If you find this conversation interesting, then Lawrence is also leading an upcoming six part History Extra masterclass on the rise and fall of Nazi Germany. To subscribe to the course and access video lectures and additional learning material, head to historyextra.com nazigermany from 27 January Lawrence.

[Daniel Kramer Arden]

In your introduction you mentioned that you've met and spoken with many people who lived under Nazi rule, both its devotees and its victims. Do you think their eyewitness testimonies are more valuable than archival material when it comes to truly understanding the mentality of that time?

[Lawrence Rees]

I wouldn't ever say one is necessarily more valuable than the other. Coming from television, which is where I came from, I always wanted to make history documentaries. I never wanted to be an academic historian or anything, but I was inspired by shows way back, like the World at War and things like that. And I always wanted to work in television. I always wanted to make documentaries. I always wanted to make history documentaries. So that's what interested me. And so it kind of followed from that that in history documentary making there is this unbelievable divide between your ability to talk to people who were there for something and the past beyond that. So it's kind of like this moment that really divides history. And so for me, I was always more attracted to being able to talk to somebody. So for example, one of the first films I made many, many years ago was about Rasputin, and with the fall of the Berlin Wall, we were the first people into Western Siberia to be able to Go to his village, his home village, and there were still two people there, incredibly ancient old ladies who had known Rasputin as a very, very young man. And it was just incredible to be able to talk to this woman. And she was saying, well, he's an absolute nightmare. You've no idea. He was down there drunk. And it just gives you this extraordinary connection to something that with the rest of history is kind of gone. And for me, with the Second World War, my father was in the raf. My uncle, who I never met, was killed on the convoys sunk by a U boat. So there was also this visceral conn connection to it as well. And so for me personally, the ability to talk to people who met Hitler, who talked to people who were in Auschwitz, talked to people who met someone who worked at Auschwitz and so on, there was this incredible sense of liveness to it and connection. But there are issues with dealing with oral history that you've got to be careful about. So I would never say that one is more important than the other, but for me, this sense of it, I don't know that I would have devoted 35 years to a subject if I hadn't have started off and being able to talk to people who were there, because it's that that gave it this excitement to me. But as I say, I wouldn't say that it somehow is more important than other sources. You've got to be skeptical about every source. As a historian, haven't you?

[Daniel Kramer Arden]

Could you tell me a little bit about a conversation you had in the early 1990s with a member of the Waffen SS?

[Lawrence Rees]

Yeah. This was when I was researching a film in Austria, a documentary film there. And it was really one of the first times I'd ever met someone who had served in the Waffen SS and who had been committed to the regime. And it was an extraordinary experience because this was somebody who, after the war became a senior executive in a German car company. He was clearly and retired now, but he was still very compos mentis, very on the ball, very focused. And yet once you started talking to him about the war, he started saying things like, it's a shame that the British and the Germans didn't get together because we could have ruled the world and Churchill was the person responsible. And overall, the Third Reich was a wonderful period. And as for the Jews, well, it was a problem that had to be dealt with one way or the other. And so. And so all this stuff coming out and it was essentially a completely fantasy alternate view of the past. And yet in his ordinary life, he was functioning as a very successful adult. So it was my first experience of how there was this sort of weird duality to it. And I became fascinated by this because I thought, you know, if you're going to meet someone who's a former committed Nazi, first of all, you might imagine they'd be kind of slavering and like horns or something. And this was someone who was, in his own way, a perfectly impressive man, businessman, successful, and was not what you imagined at all, and yet still held these views. So really that was a journey of trying to understand mentality, trying to understand how that was possible and how that could happen in that environment, and that this person could think this, even knowing long after the war what had happened and the crimes that had been committed.

[Daniel Kramer Arden]

Now, the subtitle of Your book is 12 Warnings from History. What is it about the state of the world today that made you feel this book needed to be written now? Do you think there's something about today's climate that echoes the past?

[Lawrence Rees]

I hope that my own journey and God, I hate that because everyone talks about that, don't they? What is your journey? My own kind of movement through the subject started in 1990, when I was fascinated by that mentality. My interest has always been mentalities, which is, why do people think what they do? How are they able to justify what they do? How do they think it's right? All of those sorts of things that's interested me throughout my career. Way more, for example, say, than someone who's interested in military history. Not that I decry anyone is interested, it's just what you happen to be interested in. I'm much more coming from a documentary, journalistic training, much more interested in trying to understand people's decisions and psychology in the past, why things are happening. And so that journey was already going and I was reading more and more psychology and I thought, is there a way of trying to use the very latest neuroscience and psychology to help us understand the mentalities of the Nazis? So that was happening to me anywhere. It wasn't that I looked at the world today and thought, the world needs my book on this kind of. No matter what happens in the next year or two. I think it's relevant because actually, what I'm trying to talk about is the human condition. As long as there's human beings, there's a human condition. That's what I'm trying to get at. And by warnings, you know, I called the original series I made 30 years ago, warning from History, and that was because I always felt going on from Carl Jaspers, the German philosopher, that he said, that which has happened is a warning. It's important to remember, and so on. So it wasn't really a specific warning. But then I thought, I've always been interested in warnings in the context of history ever since then. Because, as I say in the book, I don't think history's got lessons. What I quote in the book is you can't say, for example, you read in the popular press or online, it might say, oh, Churchill shows that you shouldn't appease dictators, right? But actually he appeased Stalin. He didn't appease Hitler, he appeased Stalin. So here's the lesson. Don't appease in some situations and appease in others. So, hey, there's no lesson. Whereas a warning is clearer. A warning is like when the doctor says to you, if you keep smoking like this, you're much more likely to get lung cancer than not. You might not, but it's a useful thing to have as a warning. And so that's how I approached trying to examine this history. What could we take from it that was a warning in that sense?

[Daniel Kramer Arden]

One of the pervasive themes in your book is the regime's use of manipulation and also its reliance on entertainment as a power strategy. In today's world, we hear so much about political movements employing similar strategies, creating an us versus them dynamic. Do you see any direct parallels between the Nazi playbook and modern political tactics?

[Lawrence Rees]

Yeah, of course, all over the place. But what I'm careful in the book to do, if you noticed in the book, Danny, I don't go, ha, ha, this is what X is doing, or this is what Y is, and this is what Z is doing. And that's absolutely deliberate. Any examples I quote at the end are like Mao or Stalin figures from history that you can, you can see. And I do that for two reasons, really. One is because I was conscious that I'm writing a history book informed on occasion by psychology. I'm not writing a modern political treatise or anything. And related to that, you know, I've spent all these years trying to understand the Second World War and the Nazis. I'm still learning, you know, who am I to sit down and talk about particular countries, politics, and pretend a level of expertise to be able to say, oh, well, this is exactly like this. So that was the first reason I didn't say, well, look, actually, yes, this is exactly what so and so is doing. And the second reason is because I always think it's much more powerful I thought this with films I made and the books I wrote, it's much more powerful and profound if the reader themselves makes the leap so that actually you read it and you go and this has happened to some people who've read the book. They've come to me, you know, it's made me think about is X or Y and whereas if, if I'd written think about X or Y then actually this doesn't have that same effect. I hope what I'm laying out is a series of templates, a series of things to think about when you're looking around the modern world today.

[Daniel Kramer Arden]

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[Lawrence Rees]

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[Daniel Kramer Arden]

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[Lawrence Rees]

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[Daniel Kramer Arden]

And also, I suppose if you do draw out particular examples from the current period of time that we're in, there's the risk of dating.

[Lawrence Rees]

It means that, oh, okay, there's no point in reading this in two years time because actually all those people have moved on. And also you get into kind of like predictions. I never felt that that kind of immediate comparison works because actually I think what I hope the sorts of things I'm talking about are universal. That will apply now and in however long because they're to do with what it's like to be a human being and the human condition.

[Daniel Kramer Arden]

You've also written a particularly chilling chapter that focuses on how the Nazis targeted young people. What made this demographic particularly vulnerable to Nazi ideology? Why were young minds so susceptible?

[Lawrence Rees]

It's been wonderful doing this, but I've really enjoyed it. I mean, everyone else may hate it, but I've really enjoyed. Well, I say they may hate it. They haven't hated it yet. But I mean, you know, who knows? I'm sure I'm going to get criticism for what they say in America moving out of your lane. You know, I'm sure there's going to be criticism for that. I know all of the issues around that. But I've loved doing this book and I've loved doing it because of what I've learned and particularly what I've learned about neuroscience. It's just been fantastic because, you know, I was really. I've been hero worshiping a guy called Robert Sapolsky, Professor Robert Sapolsky, who's professor of neuroscience at Stanford. I've been hero worshiping him for years from afar. And in fact, his lectures, his undergraduate lectures he gives, he gave some time ago at Stanford, are online and they are. I just recommend anyone to look through them. They are compelling, brilliant, brilliant, base understandings of neuroscience and how it impacts. It's just he's a genius and he's written a whole series of books on this subject and I was able to then interview him and talk to him and discuss the Nazis in relation to his work. And it was a great, immense privilege. Wonderful. And one of the things that he brought up and I talked about, which I hadn't thought about before from the reading I'd done. I mean, I'd read a lot about them and us. I'd read a lot about conspiracy theories, I'd read a lot about distancing. I knew quite a lot about how the Nazis evolved to solve what was, quote, their problem in killing, which was the problem of killing up close versus distancing, which is a whole fascinating. But I knew all that. One of the things that I learned from him that I hadn't known about was this notion of the cleverness of targeting, if you're a dictator, of targeting younger people under 25. And that's because of a physiological issue, which is the prefrontal cortex in the brain, which is really the bit that says, you know when you see a really lovely cream cake and you go, oh, yeah, bring it on, I want that, right? And another part of your brain is going, are you stupid? You're going to eat that, you're going to feel sick, you're going to put on £2. You keep moaning, you're getting fat, you can't have it. And you go, oh, God. And this internal thing is going on, right? It's very straightforward. That's an internal debate in the brain where the prefrontal cortex and the frontal cortex is the bit that's saying, for God's sake, don't touch that cream cake until you're 25. That bit's not fully formed. And that explains why, as adolescents and young people, we're all doing things that very often we wouldn't do if we were over 25. It explains why so much violence, so much everything is with people under that age. It's a physiological fact about the way the brain is deliberately developed to not be completely finished, as it were, until you're 25 or over. And it's interesting in itself, why that? Why does the brain do that? Because it could do it earlier. And it doesn't do it, as he says, because he gives a really good example, which is said, you try and explain to a five year old or a seven year old, look, Granny's coming round and she's going to give you this toy, but you've already got it, so I'm going to hide it now. And you've got to pretend when Granny comes that you're getting it for the first time so as not to upset her. Right? And the kid's going, what? It's too complex a kind of thing. And it's that the prefrontal cortex completely understands that, but it takes longer to develop, as he says, so we can understand the hypocrisies of our life, you know, so if you're a dictator, this. As Sapolsky, I quote him in the book saying this is the ideal period to develop fanaticism. In under 25, he says, you're much more likely to be a fascist or Mother Theresa, it can go any direction, but you're much more likely to be like that and to feel committed to a cause and idealistic, all of these things. And that's why it's so clever for people like the Nazis. But also, look at Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. It was driven by students. Targeting people under 25 is a really, really powerful way of developing a kind of passionate, passionate supporters.

[Daniel Kramer Arden]

Another fascinating area you cover is how leading Nazis try to justify their actions after 1945. How did they rationalise the crimes of the regime once the war ended? Were there any attempts to disavow what they had done or did they try to legitimise those actions in some way?

[Lawrence Rees]

Depends which Nazi you talk to. I mean, some. Absolutely, in my view, deeply hypocritical in going, yeah, absolutely. Oh, my gosh, I had no idea how this happened. I just didn't know. I mean, so there was a number of techniques that they used. One was, I had no idea. I mean, I met a number of people who go, well, I knew there was somewhere called Auschwitz, but I just thought it was a place that, you know, was like a. A camp where, I mean, you know, you know, we all thought the Jews were going east to work. We'd no idea, you know, so there's basically, it's kind of prove I knew anything that was going on, you know, so that was one technique Another technique, which was kind of more sophisticated than that and in a way more interesting, was what politicians often use now best known as whataboutism. So you say you've got to accept that the Holocaust is the single most appalling crime in history. And they go, what about the firebombing of Hamburg? What about. You know. And so you go, yeah, well, let's. Of course, we can have a moral debate about that, but can we just put that to one side and talk about the Holocaust? And they say, how can we when. What about what you did in your colonies? So there's simply a sense that we are deeply hypocritical people. It's Victor's justice. And that's a profound line through this mentality. Wise, I think that 1938 is a key year because you've got three events in 1938, two of which anyone who knows stuff about the history will know about. The obvious one being Anschluss in March, the movement into Austria, and then the outpouring of hatred and everything against Austrian Jews. That's in March. And then in November, you've got Kristallnacht, which is the appalling smashing of synagogues and arrest of Jews for concentration camps and also killing of some Jews as well. So you've got those two events in 938. But my contention is there's a third event that in mentality Wise, is as important, which is the Avian Conference, which came in between these. And this was this move by Roosevelt to set up a conference to see if people were prepared to take refugees. They weren't even prepared to say Jews from Germany and Austria. But the whole thing was a fix because it was basically window dressing, because the delegates were assured from all countries around the world that, don't worry, you don't have to come forward and take them. This is just. We're going to essentially voice our concerns about what the Nazis are doing, but actually, in practical terms, offer very little. And so very little came from that conference and what it did. And Hitler made a speech in September 1938 that specifically identified this. What it did was to make the Nazis have total contempt for the democratic countries because they said, yeah, right, we're trying to deal with what we see as a, quote, problem, which is the Jews. And Hitler said, I'll provide luxury liners to take them anywhere. Who wants them, they can have them. And nobody else wanted them. And yet they said it was terrible what the Nazis were doing. So the Nazis just go, hypocrites. Unbelievable hypocrites and there's a very interesting piece of psychological research recently which is that hypocrites are apparently more disliked and decried than straightforward liars. It's that level of hypocrisy. And I think we can see that in recent events with politicians. It's saying one thing and actually then you're secretly doing it, that the hypocrisy is a big deal. And I think that is a thing that when they come to look back after the war, former Nazis are still saying. So there's a sense amongst many of them and it's suppressed often because they basically think, well, we just got to get on with life as it is. But there's always a sense that the rest of the world was totally hypocritical. For example, also, same thing with colonies. As they saw it, Britain's got a vast empire based, as they see it, based on racism, based on the white man is better than all these other people. We've got a giant empire. And then when Germany wants an empire, we say they can't have it, but we're not giving up our empire. Hypocrite. So that's a big mental coping strategy that you see right the way through.

[Daniel Kramer Arden]

We know that many of the top Nazi leaders were put on trial after the war for crimes against humanity. Was there any serious attempt by the prosecutors to assess the psychological motivations behind their actions? And did anyone try to define a specific Nazi personality type?

[Lawrence Rees]

Yes, absolutely. There were a number of psychologists who were interviewing and doing these inkblot tests with former Nazis. And I read that results and what was interesting about it was that in the first place, the actual tests, these inkblot tests that you do, people could look at them and get completely different results. So you find one of the psychologists came to the conclusion, yes, you know, he wrote an article later called something like Murderous SS robots, you know, which is the sort of comforting image in a way that I think some people want to have of this. And then another psychologist said, well, no, actually, not at all. This is just a collection of individuals and you can't say that. And then there was a famous book about authoritarian personality which was trying to address some of this. But if you look at the recent literature, the recent literature in this area really is to say, actually, of course, we're all influenced by the culture in which we're born. That's self evident, that's obvious. But within that there's a vast range of personalities and behaviors. And so you can't point to a sort of Robotic tendency in human beings. It's simply simplistic to say that you've.

[Daniel Kramer Arden]

Already mentioned the philosopher Karl Jasper's warning to posterity. Do you think each new generation is really able to grasp that warning? Especially as we move further and further away from the Second World War?

[Lawrence Rees]

Oh no, where was I? Someone said to me, some academic said, oh you must be very pleased. You know, so the question is with Nazis warning from history, how many people heeded the warning? You know, I go, are you kidding? I mean, nobody. Well, not nobody, but okay, one or two. I mean, I don't know. But first of all you've got a massive problem which is don't the majority of people in this country give up the study of all history at 13? I think so. So you've got a fundamentally historically illiterate country. You've got a country where when we did the original Nazi series we did this poll beforehand. This is a big series we did on the Nazis and I wrote a book on that 2005, the book on Auschwitz. And the majority of people didn't know what the word Auschwitz meant, never mind have a view on it, never mind deny it, didn't know what it meant. So the notion that there's any movement to learn anything from history or to understand history as a generalized way in terms of anything other than small numbers of people. I've enjoyed doing all this but I don't know if it's done any good at all. Would it were not so? But there isn't a sense. No. Or if there is to learn from it, it's to misrepresent it. Like Churchill stood out against Hitler but was perfectly prepared to suck up to Stalin in some way. So no, I wish I could be more. I did some interview once where people said well, I'm just more depressed after talking to you than I was before. And I well, sorry.

[Daniel Kramer Arden]

Nazi Germany is often held up as the ultimate example of how a cultured society can spiral into authoritarianism and atrocities. But does focusing so much on this specific regime risk turning it into a kind of historical cliche? Is there a risk of oversimplifying it?

[Lawrence Rees]

Yeah, but the risk is not studying it because then you won't oversimplify it. Don't you find it in life as well as history? It's so much easier to have firm views about things before you know much about them. So that's the risk. I did an interview for this World War II educational site years ago and I interviewed a great guy called Professor Irie who was professor at Harvard and specialized in Japanese diplomatic history. And I said to him, you know, what's the value of studying this period of history? And he said, well, he said one value would be that politicians stop making false comparisons with it. The risk is that not understanding it, not studying it, makes it a cliche. Murderous Nazi robots makes it a cliche. Don't worry about it. Because it was the loaded Germans who kind of someone said to me, oh, there's nothing to understand. It's all to do with the way they were swaddled as babies. You know, they grew up as anything.

[Daniel Kramer Arden]

At the same time, your book emphasizes the specific context, time and place that shaped the Nazi regime. Why is it so important to study those unique factors when we're trying to understand this dark chapter in history?

[Lawrence Rees]

In a way, I think the most important line I wrote in the book is the simplest, the beginning of our studies and understanding must be to accept that we're all creatures of a particular time and a particular place. Now, okay, that sounds self evident, right? But my experience of people in life is, it's anything but self evident. The very fact that people can go, as I once did, before I fully understood that stood the psychology, but that you can go, oh, if I was a German, I would have stood up and said something. I would have, you know, it shows you so many people think that. And the very fact that we say that demonstrates that you don't understand the fundamental thing you have to understand about your life, which is you are a creature of a particular time and a particular place. Everything, everything stems for that. And these people back then were creatures of that particular time in that particular place. So only by understanding that time and place can you begin to understand how and why they're doing what they're doing. I met this guy once who said I was talking about the Aztecs for some reason and saying, look, you know, if you look at the Aztecs, because I did exact produced this series on the conquistadors once, many years ago, and I was fascinated by the interaction between Cortez and Montezuma. And I was saying, look, if you'd been brought up in early 15th century Mesoamerica as an Aztec, okay, almost certainly you would have believed in human sacrifice as the necessary way forward to make sure the rains come, you know, the ripping out of people's hearts and all of that stuff, you'd have been thinking, okay, let's get on with it. And this guy goes, no, I would have started out the equivalent of Aztec. Amnesty International, I would have been there saying, listen, Human rights are basic issues here, but the interesting thing is I couldn't say he wouldn't have been. Who knows? Maybe. You know, all I can say is it seems pretty unlikely to me that that would have happened.

[Daniel Kramer Arden]

Was there anything in researching this book that surprised you?

[Lawrence Rees]

Yeah, well, going back to what we talked about earlier, the fact that prefrontal cortex isn't formed until you're 25, that really surprised me. The kind of notion of them and us in the sense of the work by that. I think it's Professor Fisk in Princeton, offhand, who's looked at different forms of them and us and the way we can use that to understand one possible reason why the Nazis are humiliating Jews in the way that they are, to try and turn them in their eyes from being a kind of dangerous version of us to a humiliated, harmless version of us. I thought that was really interesting. I thought the whole way that the elite connived to put Hitler into power, I'd known a lot about that before, but I hadn't fully understood how. You see, if you look at Hitler, people always say, oh, well, his rhetoric was unbelievable. I was hypnotized and everything. And yet I've met people who heard him speak at the time who thought, God, what a complete jerk, versus someone else who thought, that's transformational. I wrote a book on Hitler's charisma, charismatic leadership, which really, I concluded that charisma exists in the gap between you and your audience. It has to be something that's jointly between us. You find that with people, don't you? That you meet some people and you feel you can be this kind of outgoing, good night, whatever person with, and you meet somebody else who just makes you want to clam up. It's an interaction. And so what was interesting with the elite is so many people thought, he's an absolute jerk. We can really use this guy, you know, we can manipulate this. And I thought that was, in that context, really interesting. And of course, I thought that the whole way that you understand how the killing squads worked and how they were able to carry on the extent to which they had to manage Nazi leadership, had to manage the fact that so many of them were having psychological difficulties in killing close up, and how they actually work their way through that, almost as a kind of a hideous, terrible management problem that they're working through, how to deal with their personnel, so far away from the cliche. The cliche is, oh, they're all acting under orders, as murderous robots. Absolutely, they're acting under orders. But if they refuse to kill. No one was ever shot for refusing to kill. If they refuse to kill, they're taken away into the sidelines. They'd looked on as weak, but they don't lose their lives because they refuse to kill. And so the whole tension and way that the leadership group and the notion of group psychology helped the Nazis kill all of that was. I hadn't understood the depth of research that's gone into that. I thought that was really interesting.

[Daniel Kramer Arden]

You raise an interesting point there, both about charisma and the group psychology, because I want to ask you, how crucial was the support of the general population to Hitler and the Nazi elite?

[Lawrence Rees]

I think they were hugely conscious that they wanted it. I mean, that was what Goebbels called it. As early as 1933, he called for the mobilization of the mind. And by that, what he meant was the majority of Germans who hadn't voted Nazis, because, don't forget the majority of Germans, even in the kind of pressurized election of 1933, after Hitler became Chancellor, the majority of Germans didn't vote Nazis. It was only later on, once all these plebiscites and everything happened when the Nazis were in power and there's huge pressure, that you get these big numbers voting in favour. But he called on this thing called the mobilization of the mind, which was. He was conscious very much that he wanted to try and ensure that the people who hadn't been supported the Nazis were turned around. So I think it was incredibly, it was very important for them Post 1943 in Stalingrad and usurpation of Mussolini as Prime Minister of Italy. After that, you see terror coming much more to the fore. And Goebbels writes in his diary, he writes approvingly of how Himmler is hanging deserters and hanging people who speak out against the regime. And terror there is what works. But terror like that is never as effective, I don't think. Goebbels certainly believed. Never as effective as trying to create this sense that of the Volksgemeinschaft, the people's community, were all in it together, all the people at EZU fitted as they saw it, in ended to it.

[Daniel Kramer Arden]

Finally, Lawrence, do you think there's a danger that psychoanalyzing individual Nazis might actually minimize the horrors perpetrated by the regime?

[Lawrence Rees]

Yes. I would never do that. I absolutely think that's a mistake. I think, and I write in the introduction about how the attempt was made by the oss, the forerunner, the CIA, to look into the mind of Adolf Hitler, you know, and it ended up with a number of conclusions that one or two of which are just nonsensical. So absolutely, it's not something I do in the book. It's not something I would ever think is appropriate to do. What I'm talking about in the book are big social psychological trends, are big mentality trends that you can see. Which isn't to do with the notion of deep into the psyche of the individual and their traumas or not. But yeah, I think that it's slippery slope territory, as they say, wants to try and think, especially for historians to think, okay, let's see into this particular person's. This action thus proves that he's a particular type. The other thing that I really, I'm not wild about is using psychological labels. Oh, he was definitely a psychopath. Oh, he was definitely a narcissist, you know, because the labeling also leave aside how accurate you can be when you've never met the people and the historical figures. You know, leave that aside. But also there's a danger once you start labeling like that that it becomes, oh, well, that's sort of exculpultry. Oh, that's okay. Because actually, look, that was a person who had a terrible upbringing and take away the sense of individual responsibility that I think every single one of those people had to face up to.

[Danny Byrd]

That was Lawrence Rees, whose book the Nazi 12 warnings from history is out now, published by Viking. And if you're interested in learning more about Nazi Germany more generally, then head to historyextra.comNazi Germany to subscribe to Lawrence's six part masterclass on the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Thanks for listening. This podcast was produced by Daniel Kramer Arden.