How Hitler reached the final solution

When the government controls the press, police, and flow of information--and basically can make people disappear without due process of law--then resistance becomes increasingly difficult. "You've got to defend civil rights and human rights at the first line of defense, and you can't engage in wishful thinking that there are some things people will never do, and it can't get that bad. Of course we know it can get that bad."

Initially, only about one third of Germans voted for the Nazis, but economic collapse, political gridlock, and foreign policy humiliations combined to discredit the foundering German democracy, Browning says. As a result, popular support for an authoritarian alternative grew. "Once those people got into power, they were then free to follow their own agenda," he concludes. "Most [individuals] who voted for Hitler didn't do so because they wanted to kill Jews, but they certainly wanted a regime that would do away with the discredited Weimar Republic. Once they had made that wager, then they were stock."

David Williamson is director of Research News, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

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