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“It is a most important fact that we understand that Hitler was good—in the eyes of many millions of people. To think of him and the Nazi party as a bunch of gangsters who took over an innocent country is to miss or conceal this painful, troubling fact. The belief that Hitler was an inspiring god who dispensed good in the face of evil was facilitated by his manipulations and subversion of fundamentally religious patterns of thought. The Nazis, their followers, and the citizens they controlled, believed that they were doing right.
“If that point is missed, if Hitler is seen only as a homicidal monster, or the voice of millions of maniacs, the enormity of what happened is slighted, and the monstrosity of his deeds, and of the entire Nazi era, are disposed of. Yet if this point is grasped, deep caverns of mystery, fright and despair open within us.” (Quoted from S. Kaufman in New Republic.)
“This is the most difficult and ambiguous of horrors—the fact that Hitler was loved by millions, that he was the embodiment of people's frustrations, hates and desires.” If we do not recognize this we cannot study this Berlin band, to understand what happened. We cannot even find one voice amongst them, echoing our own, in a whole spectrum of voices, each there, from 1933 to 1945, which will speak, if not for us, at least to us. For it is a majority-complied-with community system that makes monstrosities possible.
How often I've wondered about this project, and what we were doing with it. At this stage of our profession's collective history the too easy cynical thought occurs: “Who cares?” After all, we're talking today about the remainder of the Berlin Group (15-18 members)—