They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45

by Milton Sanford Mayer

none of these nine Germans had ever traveled abroad (except in war); none had ever known or talked with a foreigner or read the foreign press; none ever wanted to listen to the foreign radio when it was legal to do so, and none (except, oddly enough, the policeman) listened to it when it was illegal. They were as uninterested in the outside world as their contemporaries in France—or America. None of them ever heard anything bad about the Nazi regime except, as they believed, from Germany’s enemies, and Germany’s enemies were theirs.

Sounds about right - without intellectual curiosity and a worldview that expands beyond a country's borders, this could happen anywhere.