Johnson, Eric A. Nazi terror: the Gestapo, Jews, and ordinary Germans.

New York:
Basic Books, 1999. Print.
Chapter seven of Nazi terror: the Gestapo, Jews, and ordinary Germans reports the results of a
survey sent to 300 German citizens in 1993. This survey asked questions about experiences with
witnessing Nazi terror, their opinions, and their involvement in legal activity. Many responded
with hate messages saying the questions were an abomination, but many did respond. Each
participant was a German citizen living during war time at an age old enough to have an opinion
on the matter. Given the amount of extremely negative responses, it is clear that Nazi terror had a
large enough effect to still irritate these German citizens still today.
The survey was created by Central Michigan University history professor Eric A. Johnson and
German psychologist Karl-Heinz Reuband. After receiving the survey results, Johnson reported,
The results of our survey do not prove that most Germans agreed with all the Nazis policies
and initiatives. They also do not prove that most Germans had nothing to fear from Nazi terror
(262).
Other quotes: Most slept soundly at night, worked productively by day, and enjoyed their lives
during the peacetime years of the National Socialist rule. Why should they not have? The
economy was improving, most were finding employment, and their country was regaining its
pride and was still at peace (253).
Nazi Terror posed no threat to most ordinary Germans (253).
the uncomfortable truth that the overwhelming majority of German people complied
willingly with Nazi ideology and policy and suffered little if at all as a consequence of their
occasional and largely harmless indiscretions, even when the Gestapo learned about them

through denunciations from the civilian population or through its other means of gaining
information (254).
Analysis: Only a small section of this book turned out to be relevant, but the information I
gathered was very revealing. The results analyze the level of apathy of German citizens who
lived in the time of the Holocaust, and shows that they were happy that the terror was not
inflicted upon them. The book is very hard to read and I could not figure out how so many pages
were filled up with the results of only a few sets of data.