3 Quotes & Sayings By George L Mosse

George L. Mosse was born in Chicago, Illinois, on June 10, 1894. He was educated at the University of Chicago and the University of Berlin before receiving his Ph.D. in history from Yale Read more

He taught at the Universities of Washington and Minnesota before joining the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in 1919. In 1933 he left for England where he joined the University of London as professor of modern European history and director of research in cultural geography until his retirement in 1960. In 1964 he returned to the United States and taught at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, until his death in 1968.

His awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, the Presidential Medal for Merit from President Eisenhower, and a gold medal from Yale University.

1
Carl Schmitt could boast with some justice that the Nazi revolution was orderly and disciplined. But the reason lies not so much within the Nazis themselves as in the lack of an effective opposition. For millions the Nazi ideology did assuage their anxiety, did end their alienation, and did give hope for a better future. Other millions watched passively, not deeply committed to resistance. "Let them have a chance" was a typical attitude. Hitler took the chance and made the most of it. George L. Mosse
2
It was a cultural revolution, and was not directed at instituting economic changes. He could thus appeal to old prejudices without threatening the existing economic system. This appealed, above all, to white-collar workers and the small entrepreneurs, as some of the statistics presented in this book will demonstrate. It was their kind of revolution: the ideology would give them a new status, free them from isolation in the industrial society, and give them a purpose in life. But it would not threaten any of their vested interests; indeed it would reinforce their bourgeois predilections toward family..and restore the 'good old values' which had been so sadly dismantled by modernity. George L. Mosse