Never again ask "How did Germans let it hapen?"

[FigTree]

27. And let me add an even scrarier note:

“This all occurred in what was, or at least seemed by the late 19th century to be, Europe's most cultivated, certainly its best-educated country. Germany had the world's finest elementary school system, the highest literacy rate and the best universities; by 1913 more books were published annually in Germany than in any country in the world. Its technical skill, its industry, its relentless business savvy (a trait, interestingly, commonly associated at the time with both Germans and Jews) marked it off as among modernity's singular successes. The Weimar era [1919-1933], the German Jewish sociologist Karl Mannheim boasted, represented a new Periclean age. Soon he, like so many others fortunate enough to survive, had to flee for his life.”
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/24/books/enlightenment-all-around.html?pagewanted=all