They Thought They Were Free – The Germans, 1933–45When this book was first published it received some attention from the critics but none at all from the public. Nazism was finished in the bunker in Berlin and its death warrant signed on the bench at Nuremberg. Thats Milton Mayer, writing in a foreword to the 1966 edition of They Thought They Were Free. Hes right about the critics: the book was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1956. General readers may have been slower to take notice, but