Laurence Rees is not an oracle. "What everyone asks me is to point out today's politicians. Everything has to do with Erdogan, Trump, or the situation in South Korea," says the British historian, who has just published In the Mind of the Nazi. 12 warnings from history (Crítica), a manual that explains through the birth of Nazism the possible consequences that the current weakness of democratic values could have. "In the book, I place the trends as I find them, but at no time is there a direct contemporary allusion. I don't want to be presumptuous. It would be terribly presumptuous on my part to say 'I see this direct parallel in Spain'. It is you who teach me about Spain, not the other way around. It is you who have to link what is happening with the explanation in my book," he adds frankly.
From a personalized democracy managed by decree, some conclusions related to In the Mind of the Nazi can be drawn, although discussing this issue with its author, an expert in the circumstances that generated Nazism, seems exaggerated. "Of all the existing preconditions, the most important is that democracy did not provide what people wanted. Hindenburg [President of Germany until 1934] was allowing governing by decree. Elections did not lead to any change. People wanted a solution to terrible problems, and democracy did not solve anything. There we see a warning."
Rees's manual is divided into 12 chapters. Spreading conspiracy theories. Using 'us vs. them'. Or Valuing enemies are some examples. The inner titles rhyme with current events. "There are many things we can take from this history. In Great Britain, we live in an uncultured society. Most people stop studying History at age 13 or 14. Their lives are impoverished. They do not have the opportunity to see the warnings. I see parallels. Democracies are eroding. Not everyone is following the script. In fact, there are echoes everywhere." To understand Hitler's rise well, he has relied on psychology. What has he found in the Nazi mind? "A human mind," he replies. "What has interested me throughout my life working on the subject are mentalities. I am interested in why we are who we are. I am not interested in psychoanalyzing Hitler from a distance. It is nonsense. It was a great help to have the assistance of Professor Robert Sapolski. He is a doctor at Stanford in Neuroscience. And what works best is the dichotomy of 'us vs. them'. It is almost the most central aspect in understanding Nazism."
Were they all Nazis? If you had lived in that era in Germany, would you have been a Nazi? "I have thought a lot about it. Look at what happened when Hitler came to power in January 1933. Many people wanted to join the Nazi party. Perhaps people decided that the time for Nazism had finally come or they were only thinking of their own interests. Maybe it was a good idea to be a member of the Nazi party. It does not mean that everyone became a Nazi. There was always resistance. Would you be one of them? Do the following experiment: imagine that as a baby you are transported to the beginning of the 15th century in America. You would have grown up as an Aztec and believed that human sacrifice was vital for survival. Would you have resisted? It seems unlikely."
The support generated by a vulgar, barely talented man traumatized by the experience of the Great War like Hitler was because he spoke of emotions and not because he represented the profile of the average German. "In 1928, he got 2.8% of the votes. They were not like him. It was a combination of the circumstances of the moment, his skills, and his specific personality that generated that situation. He had two speeds: either he was on or off. He found it difficult to sustain any kind of intellectual discussion with anyone. He has extreme and radical visions with a weak personality. He has the certainty of the vision. There was a feeling that everything was possible. Hitler was excited by radical ideas. He is full of hatred. And it works great for him. There are other people full of hatred and he is able to tell them: if you hate, trust me. You don't hate enough."
For his research, Rees has interviewed some protagonists of the time. In the Nazi mind, the idea of being embarked on an epic adventure worked. "It is a continuous surprise after so many years. Who would have thought it was fun to be a Nazi? For many people, it was the best time of their lives. It has to do with a leadership structure: there is no morality. For the younger ones, it was exciting. If someone had told Hitler we have to invade the Moon, he would have said what a great idea. Morally, it is terrible and overwhelming."
And it seems that social media is greased by Goebbels. "He would have loved it and used it massively. Absolutely. He had an instinctive understanding of new media. Particularly cinema." Rees is an expert in Nazi propaganda through cinema. "He understood two key things about how it was used. His reading may be relevant: first, he understood that it is very difficult to change anyone's mindset. It is important to reinforce their prejudices. And secondly: emotion is important. It was better for his interests to produce the film Jud Süss, a historical drama that told how a Jew used his influence to violate a beautiful woman than to include more rats in a movie montage that compared Jews to rats. Bringing the reinforcement of existing prejudices to social media is a terrifying idea."
For example, Israel's response to Hamas attacks on October 7 has been used to reinforce latent prejudices. "The most terrifying thing about antisemitism and Nazism in general is that it seems to lie dormant for long periods and in a crisis, it resurfaces massively. In Bosnia, people lived peacefully and suddenly there is a crisis and these old, terrible memories of differences resurface. It's scary. We focus on differences during crises as an easy way to blame others," he explains.
He does not want to be pessimistic. In his family, they do not like that he has become, so to speak, a bad omen. It's creepy that Laurence Rees collects all his thoughts when writing a book that connects reality with the particularities that elevated the Nazis. "My family has scolded me for being too pessimistic. I try to be optimistic. We must always remember that the Nazis were defeated. We still have plenty of democracies. The more I study, the more I think it is incredible to have democracy. There are many forces acting against democracy. The enemy, in a way, is the complacency of good people. Good people assume that laws and institutions are solid when they are not at all. Hitler could not have come to power without the complacency of the elite."