-3-
 
 
and expressed their feelings about a great variety of topics. I shall
try 
first of all to put down certain statements made by these persons that
seem 
to me sufficiently interesting to be recorded, but I shall not try to
attribute them to individuals.
 
 
 I was told over and over again that the situation when Hitler came
into power was nearly intolerable and was rapidly getting worse (only
one
person explicitly denied this), that nearly everybody agreed at the
time that something had to be done, and that the establishment of the
Nazi regime seemed to be the only thing that could be done. One
informant said that big industry, which had taken its part in putting
Hitler in, was sorry within two weeks for what it had done. But much as
moderates disliked the extravagances of the Nazis, at any rate for the
moment nearly everybody had agreed that the step was inevitable. Most
of my informants declared that in their opinion manyuseful things were
accomplished at the beginning of the Nazi regime and there is a
considerable agreement that Hitler did in a very conspicuous degree
restore the feeling of national dignity, pride and confidence, thereby
giving a meaning to life for great masses of the population who had
come to feel that life was really not worth living. There are some
people who deny all this, but it seemed to me that they were probably
so strongly hostile to the government or so lacking in ability to
control their own feelings that their opinion may be disregarded.
 However, I was also told in a particularly impressive interview
by a man who made a deep impression on me for his courage, honesty and
sincerity that the formation of a new and deep cleavage in the German
people
began at once, and that in his opinion that cleavage, which has grown
steadily, more than counterbalances all the benefits of the two or
three first years