Festival. You can do that online, or you can do that in various spots around the book festival. Youll see the donation stations. To thank you for considering that. Also after susans talk today, she is taking questions, and if you would like to ask a question because we aren on cspan, youre asked to line up at this microphone here. Shell speak for about half an hour so shell have about 20 minutes for questions. Please, dont ask your question from your seat, but from the microphone. My name is andrew maraniss, and as someone who has written about civil rights in the south and my next book takes place in 1936 nazi germany at to him picks i could not be more excited about susan here to talk about her new book, and im so eager to hear more about it. Learning from the germans. Theres probably no person on the t planet that is more qualified to write about this subject than susan who was born in atlanta during the segregated time and now lives in berlin. One of the leading philosophers of the time, and this is such an important book for these times. She studied at harvard and the Free University of berlin, shes taught at yale and tel aviv university, shes now the director of the Einstein Forum outside of berlin. Shes been here in the u. S. On her book tour, she said, for about five weeks. I think hes i know shes happy to be here in nashville, but shes also looking forward to getting back home after a long book tour. [laughter] please join me in welcoming susan nieman to nashville. Thank you so much for coming. [applause] thank you. Im so tired. Im delighted to be here. And i want the start by saying a little bit about my own biography, the stuff that doesnt come in on the internet necessarily because therese a sense in which ive been writing this book all my life. I was born in atlanta in 1965, but my parents were yankee jews who had just moved to atlanta before i was born. So if you can imagine, we werent really considered southerners, and to make it worse better my mother got very involved in the campaign to desegregate the Public Schools in atlanta. So i spent a lot of my childhood dreaming of leaving atlanta for europe, which i knew about from the maaed line books maaed line books. Madeleine books. [laughter] or greenwich village, which i thought was kind of a leafy but talkative town. [laughter] but looking back on it e, you know, your life starts to have a shape when you get to be a certain age, and im glad i grew up in the south at a time where there were very clear ideas of right and wrong and a sense of progress. And thats probably what led me to study philosophy, though i wouldnt have admitted it at the time, and to study moral philosophy. So i was working on dissertation on emmanuel conte, for which it was pretty easy to get a fellowship to spend a year berlin in 1982. It was a time when very few americans and even fewer Jewish Americans set foot in the place. In fact, my mother told me what am i going to tell my friends . [laughter] spending a whole year in germany . This is 1982. And what i said at the time now, of course, its very trendy. My kids say, oh, yeah, hes doing his berlin year. But at the time it was not cool. And isnt it just as racist 40 years after the war to blame the entire german nation for what happened during the war as it was for the germans to blame one or another group of people in it wasnt just the jews they didnt like, there were a whole bunch of others. And im going to forget all that and concentrate on conte and gerta. Well, i was pretty surprised when i got there, because it turned out that everybody i met in berlin, of course, i was meeting a certain kind of person. I was meeting people in their 20s and 30s, people who were usually pretty educated, usually pretty, you know, they did something, they were writers, artists or musicians. All they wanted to talk about was the war. Ande i was truck even then struck even then by the difference between what they were doing with their history and what americans were doing with our history which was basically nothing. And i was already beginning to ask those questions at the time. But this, so theres a sense that ive been writing this book for about 40 years but 35, something hike that. [laughter] but there was an immediate impetus to writing this book, and i was standing at my apartment in berlin watching president obama give the eulogy for the nine churchgoers murdered in charleston, and i was in tears. Wem sure many of you were. But i also felt hopeful because it seemed as if president obama was carrying the country with him. You saw nikki haley take down the confederate flag, you saw walmart saying they werent going to sell confederate memorabilia anymore. And i said, oh, wow, america really is starting to reckoning with its history. And at the same time, just two months later, the german people welcomed one million refugees. And when i say welcome, i mean literally standing on train stations, thousands of people, with open armssigns saying welcome. You have probably heard that theres been a backlash, and there has. But it is still the case that there are more people actively engaged in Refugee Integration than voted for our rightwing party. And when i say actively engaged, i mean people spending their time to teach the refugees german, to help them with the bureaucracy, to play music and soccer with their kids. I know people who have taken strangers into their homes. When my son and i tried to buy as many groceries as we could carry, we had a hard time finding a a place that needed them. I mean, that was how active and engaged the citizens of germany were. And you have to think if america would have done something comparable, we would have welcomed within two months five million refugees. Think about it proportionally. [applause] five million refugees on a fraction of the geographical space. So i decided to write this book. I thought this is something i knew something about. And if america is going in the right direction, maybe theyre ready to hear some lessons from somewhere else. And i, but i before i thought i was going to give lessons to america, i thought, actually, i better find out more about what americans now are doing with our history. Thand so i went and spent half e year in oxford, mississippi, at this William Lehrer institute for racial reconciliation. And i learned a lot about what is going on in the south. If i focus on the south in this book, it is by no means because i think that racism is only a problem in the south. It is not. But the south is kind of a magnifying glass both of good and evil in this story. So thats why i, the book is divided into three parts. One part talks about germany, one part talks about the south, and then the last part takes some general lessons that we can learn about questions like monuments, reparations, things that i know we have all been thinking about. Now, i want to start i want to go on, i guess ive already started i want to show you somed. Images. You may have seen a picture of the holocaust monument in berlin. Whats not entirely clear from r those pictures is that it is n the center. This would be as if you would put a monument to slavery in the middle of the washington mall. This is the its not just the symbol of berlin, brandenburg gate, it is the symbol of the country now. But its not my favorite monument. Though its the most famous one. This is the largest, and its one of my favorites, its the monument to 13 million Red Army Soldiers who died fighting fascism. Finish and we often the National World war ii museum, they know the war was not just one at normandy. We honor the sacrifices of those who died in normandy, but there was a lot of other things going on. Its a very moving monument. I didnt show the slide. You walk in, you see a huge statue of a moan in mourning mother in mourning surrounded by weeping willow trees. Then you go to this gate, these are soldiers kneeling in honor for their fallen comrades. You walk down this park, it is gigantic. I urge you all to go and see it if you ever go to berlin. And 7,000 Red Army Soldiers buried here. Seven of the 77,000 who died in the last days of battle for berlin. And you see this huge statue. When it was built, it was the largest statue in the world. Im going to show you where i would be. And in one hand, he holds a child who hes rescued from the ruins, and in the other hand he to holds a sword with which hes smashed a swastika. Another one of my favorite monuments, sometimes people say, well, nonviolence worked in america or with gandhi in britain because they were civilized, but it wouldnt work against totalitarian regimes. Well, actually, it did. At least once that we know of. The law passed in 1936 forbade jews and nonjews to marry, but they couldnt absolutely force those who were married before then to divorce, although they put a lot of pressure on them. They usually lost their jobs, their rations were cut. But some people stayed faithful to their jewish spouses. In 1943, in february one of the darkest hours of the war they decided to see if they could do a trial run and round upme and deport 400 jewish men o were married to nonjewish german women. And, because up til then theyd been safe from being deported. Uso they rounded up these men, eyd they put them in a holding pace that has now space that has now been destroyed. And the women, most of whom didnt know each other, came down to the place where their men were being held and said give us back our husbands. And the gestapo trained their guns on them, and they said we dont care anymore, you can shoot us, but were not leaving until you give us our men back. Berlin, icy gestapo guns, and they backed down and they released the men. And all those people survived the war. And this sculpture, which is another very moving sculpture kind of in a little park, this sculpture was made by a daughter of one of those marriages. This is a monument to the book burning which took place in april 1933 before they actually started killing people. They burned books. And its quite strike thing monument. Striking monument. All it is is you can see the scale over there on the left, it is a hole in the ground with empty book shelves. Because the nazis built some of the great im sorry, burnt some of the great works of german literature. Whats important to know, because we tend to i think that the nazis were, you know, ignorant mob, people who didnt know any better . Right in the back on the left is the humboldt university. Its the biggest university in berlin. The highest proportion of nazi Party Members were educated, had college educations. And it was students and professors who walked out of that university and burnt those books right on that square. Now, there are 423 monuments in berlin alone, and im not going to show you all of them, but im going to show you one. These are called the stumbling stones, and they were started by this artist on the right. And people are required if you want up a stumbling stone, they required to do some research. It costs about 125, which is not beyond the needs of most people if they want to do it. But they also to research the lights of the person that is being commemorated. They have to getco permission. Thousands of people have done this, and one of the reasons, so these are scattered all over the city to stumble over when youre on your way to the dentist for the Grocery Store or wherever you are going, to remind you that this took place in the middle of ordinary life. The reason that i take the one to show youou this one is becaue brian Bryan Stevenson told me he was inspired by that when he went to germany, that was an important inspiration for his monument. If you havent seen it, go down next chance you get. I have seen pictures about it but when interviewed him in 2017 then monument was still under construction. I wasin finally able to see it yesterday and ive never seen a finer memorial to anything. And whats interesting and where the stumbling stones inspired him, those of you are not at the scene it be sought outside, that are parallel markers to the ones that are hanging up. The idea is for each county where the cgi has researched and found a lynching, each county should take back their marker and change the south. So whatever wherever you go, drive two miles, apply for another confederate battle, but in addition to this, Bryan Stevenson wants to have those memories as well. Now, this is berlin right after the war. The question is, why did germany do all this work when we are just beginning . Since i dont suppose you think they are better people than we are, you might think they are worse, and you might think since not too many people know very much about the nazis, they have an image of their mind, image in their mind of cattle cars and gas chambers, and thats absolute evil, and anything that doesnt rise to that level is not something we think about. We dont think about how it begin. We dont know much about how it ended. So the view is the minute the war was over, the german people realize, oh, my god, what have we done, and they fell on the knees and askedey for forgivene. Well, it wasnt like that at all. Here are in some places allied troops made germans walkthrough gas chambers. Sorry, not gas chambers but concentration camps. You can see them smiling, and the view was that the germans were the worst victims of the war. Its quite funny, when it first came to germany in 82 i had a lot of friends who would tell me that the parents had been nazis and they were ashamed and they werell estranged from their families. Ed they often decided not to have children out of their own. Butt nobody actually would tell me, my parents were nazis and the thought theyth were the wort worst victims. It took me a long time to realize that that was the general view. And they would say we lost 7 million of our best and brightest, our country was divided, we lost a lot of territory. Our cities were destroyed. We were hungry. Just barely alive. I hope you get the reference. And on top of that these yankees want to say it was all our fault. Who does that sound like . This was not just of you right after the war. In 1995 there was a very famous exhibit which showed that they committed war crimes on a systematic basis. Till then many people in germany have been able to say well, it was the ss. It was a few bad apples, but the 18 million men so if you were not drafted come you are doing something worse like guarding a concentration camp or being a high nazi boss, the idea was they were clean, it was galante and when this example it ran through germany from 19951999, youre thousands of people demonstrated it against it. That sign says our grandfathers were heroes. And the other similar things, and standing with my grandfather. Well, some of you caught the reference. Re but they did sound just like the defenders of the lost cause. Now, why iss this good news . I decided this was good news, and the good news is one of the first, most important things we can learn from the germans is that facing up to your shameful history is really hard. Nobody wants to do it. We prefer to live with the good stuff. Gosh, even at a personal level i forget a lot of stuff thats happened to be in my life. I choose to dwell on the nice the parts that make it remind me, and you really forget about that . Yeah, i did. Why dwell on it . But as i like to say, a nations relationship to its history is like a grownups relationship to her parents. When youre a kid you believe everything they say. When youre a teenager, maybe the opposite. But if youre going to grow up and be a reasonably Healthy Human being, you need to sort through the things that you got from your parents and be able to say, this is what im proud of and id like to pass it onto my children. Im glad my parents had those values. And on this one im not so sure. You know, i would just as soon do without it. So seeing that even the germans had a really hard time going through that process should make us feel okay, its not surprising, here the New York Times has a 1619 project. Of course Newt Gingrich is going to get upset. Of course hes going to push back, right . Even the nazis pushed back, right . This is hard to do, and nevertheless, we are beginning to do it. These are germans pushing back at the demonstrators saying, fascism is not an opinion. Its a crime. These are, up above, people looking all the pictures in the wehrmacht exhibit. So the germans have a long compound word for this process. Germans have long compound word for a lot of things. Ill pronounce it for you but you willor get right unless you spend a long time [laughing] sorry. And it means working off your past, okay, and this is a big process. It involves questions of justice. In west germany by the way, most of the criminals after nuremberg did not get tried and did not get sent to jail. Anymore than, that is Edgar Ray Killen who murdered the three civil rights activist in mississippi. It took them 40 40 years to brg them to trial. But as we know there are other people who need to be brought to trial. Or lets say convicted. But im getting helpful because i do think, and im not going to mince any words here, maybe in the last couple weeks i dont haveco to, i think our Current Administration has forced white americans to be conscious of just how deep racism runs in this country. And theres not a blip in an otherwise glorious history. You know, we all knew there was slavery but then we fought a civil war, and it was segregation but we had the civil rights movement. Im not one of those people who thought that president obamas election was going to create a postracial future, but i but id like many people i know think the art of, the moral arc of history was bending in the right direction. Until this presidency. And i think the racism that we have seen coming from that direction has forced americans to say wait a second, actually they period between the end of the civil war and the beginning of the montgomery bus boycott is kind of a blank for most white americans. Myself very much included before he started doing this research. Itsch funny, i have been saying this now for a few weeks, people like im a Silver Lining kind of person, believe me, ive been as much as theres anybody these past few years but ive been seeing change. The nuke times published an article just this morning saying can confirm this is exactly whats happening. Henry louis gates tv series in his book on reconstruction. Things like the 1619 project. Which is not just a commemoration of slavery, but an attempt to look at American History from the perspective of slavery. Not just as this unfortunate, unpleasant blip. But to talk about just how much america, for good and for bad. Good in the sense that it was a source of a great deal of our wealth. And for bad, affected and drove the history of this country. I was asked by someone, if i thought i dont think she read the book. If i thought americans should treat confederate sites or tree plantations the way germans treat not see sites . I started thinking, not the sites . The only not see not nazi sites are concentration camps. The idea of someone holding a party or a wedding at a concentration camp is just off the table. I know aoc got in trouble when she called the border concentration camps. Thats because americans tend to confuse concentration camps and death camps. People did die in concentration chance but the main death camps were in poland. Germany had hundreds of thousands of slave laborers worked and died. What was a plantation, for black people . I mean. When i wrote i saved the question of reparations for the next to last chapter of my book because i wasnt sure what i thought about it. There are arguments for and against. I was particularly struck by the arguments of two africanamerican thinkers who i think very highly of. Cornell west and will argue what the country needs is not reparations but democratic socialism. I live in a country that we have a conservative government. But Bernie Sanders is way to the right of angela merkel. Believe it or not. [laughter] because germany considers healthcare, education, parental leave, months paid vacation, workers rights, those are rights. Those are called benefits. Those are human rights. [applause] one call them rights instead of benefits, your head turns around. Its a completely different way of viewing them. Im all in favor for having those Things Considered rights. But i started thinking, if a holocaust survivor in germany got the same rights as her fellow citizens, wouldnt we think she was owed something more as well for the pain and suffering . Its going to be a long conversation. But i must say when i finished that chapter last august but i said in my putting myself out on a limb . Theres me and and i could never have guessed you would have five president ial candidates raising the question six months later. Hearings in the house of representatives. I do think for all that else is going on, we are moving in the right direction. Im just about to be done and take questions. But i want to close this presentation with a plea. Because working through our history is going to be crucial. I dont think we would have had this administration if we had been aware of how deep this history runs. But we have a more immediate task that combines remembering our history and doing something right now. One of the things that Brian Stephenson said to me when i interviewed him two years ago was, we dont just need monuments marking lynchings. We need to remember our heroes too. There were white people in the south who were against slavery. And against lynching. And you dont know their names. And it is crucial that we know their names. There are three names i know because they were my heroes when i was growing up in the south. I was too young to be part of freedom summer. But i am hoping that enough if you know what freedom summer was. The older people in the audience will, especially those from the south. Ive been shot that 40yearold harvard graduates are going, what . My plea right now is for everyone and particularly young people to remember that james chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Swain are dyed for the right to vote. And there is nothing more important in the coming year then remembering those men and making sure that everyone you know is registered to vote and get out to vote. Doesnt matter what state you live in. Thats the task ahead. Thank you very much. [applause] if you have a question, please line up at the microphone to the left. We have 15 minutes for questions. Just like many of you, susan is excited to see our next speaker. So shes going to remain here for that talk. Her signing at the tent will take place in an hour after we are done here. As opposed to right after her talk. Lets start with the questions. So, i was at a session yesterday afternoon. A black historian was on the panel and said that slavery was not americas original sin. White supremacy is americas original sin. And its a sin still very much alive. Which makes sense to me because White Supremacy explains all of our national sins. But im wondering, you pointed out theres good news. Good things happening. What is your vision, what will it take whether you call it atonement or truth and reconciliation. What would that be in this country . What would atonement and truth and reconciliation how would you see that . What would that entail . What would that involve . I think part of it, this is the good news. I bet you would not have used the word White Supremacy two years ago. That was something you would have heard in departments of postcolonial studies at some university. The very fact its become a mainstream term, seems to me to be good news. Not to say, i think some of his work is already being done. Things like the lost cause. Whats the lost cause . When do the statues go up . Arent they just somebody to heritage . We are becoming informed. There is great stuff out there that is written for a general audience. Im not talking about academic history. There is great stuff out there. Those things need to be read, discussed, groups. There are any number of groups engaging in processes of racial reconciliation. Truth and reconciliation. I think its really important that people of different races meet and speak facetoface about race. I know a young black mississippian studying in new york who said Everyone Wants to be woke but they dont have the hard conversations. So that needs to be done. Every county in the country needs to take back their lynching memorials from montgomery. But also to research who were the heroes . We dont just make memorials to anything in history. We make memorials to values. So what are the values that we want to have represented in our communities . Other things need to be done. We need to work on the criminal justice system. And i think we need to have a Serious Investigation of what reparations i do think its a matter of justice that reparations are owed. I dont think anybodys got it worked out yet but i think that would be part of the process. But once again, weve all got to vote before that happens. Thank you. I appreciate all of your efforts. And your books and such. Your reading and your talking today. My daughter should be the one asking the question because shes a northwestern grad and also has spent a lot of time in poland. And married a german guy. Who was a wonderful fellow. Hes an outstanding human being. I can say that about many germans. I wanted to ask, what do you see one of the things my daughter has brought home to us is how the polls have been victimized. By certain elements, particularly in germany. Who hold themselves up to beholder than now. Holier than thou. How do you see americans being able to walk this tight rope . I am a jewishamerican but one of the things i have to emphasize is that the nazis were not just about the jews. First they went to the communist. Then they went to the social democrats. Then they went for jews, and also gay people. And the slaavs in poland probably formed the largest number of not see victims. As horrible as the holocaust was, i say as a jew, we need to remember the other victims as well. So we dont see the jews of being a special segment of the population that were selected by the nazis . I think its really complicated. It was different. But, you know, death is death and murder is murder. If you round up people and one polish or russian town and mowed them down in a ditch. And in another, you do the same thing and one group was jewish and one was slavic, historians debate a lot to what extent the holocaust was unique. There was, he passed away. [indiscernible] the laws were quite complicated you know, there is a bulgarian french critic who said something that i try to follow as a maxim. He said the germans should talk about the uniqueness of the holocaust and the jews should talk about its universality. Thats where i am. Thats good. [applause] and ive got to say, a shout out to my mother who is no longer with us. She wasnt a theologian or intellectual, but she raised me to believe if we say once a year, our ancestors were slaves in the land of egypt. Then our place is to stand by the people whose ancestors were slaves in the land of georgia. Good afternoon. Im a twotime graduate of the university of mississippi so im acutely aware of things going on campus right now. As far as their confederate monuments and marches the students are getting involved in. My question is how did you enjoy your time or maybe not at the William Winter institute and what did you find that was the most interesting . To my great surprise, and im somebody whos a little nervous crossing the Mississippi State line. I said okay, nobodys going to bother you and the first thing that occurs to me is andrew good me and mickey schroeder. I made love to mississippi. And i was just back there giving a reading from this book. And there is, like i say, of course oxford isnt representative. I spent time in the delta as well. Talking to people who were related emmett tills trial and murder. Mississippi somehow seems to have both the best and worst of this country. And of course i was based at the institute so i was meeting a lot of social justice activists. Wonderful people. Both adults and students. But also people, all of them were people who said that they had plenty of chances to go elsewhere. And they chose to stay there and practice Susan Glisson quotes and she says, chuck said mississippi is the broadway of the movement and you dont leave broadway. So that was my thing. Theres a lot of cognitive dissidents. People are so nice. And then you think wait a sec, if you know what the history of this country is. Are they just being nice to me because im white and i can sound the aatlanta of course is not considered the south but its better than new york. But a lot of africanamericans i met there said exactly the same thing. In fact, James Meredith wife died. Was a professor at jackson state told me she came down from chicago. She never imagined living in mississippi. And there she is now. They have a very progressive mayor. Africanamerican mayor. In mississippi. So its a strange but fascinating place. Id be happy to go back to work. If the democrats support unpopular policies based on principles like justice. Including medicare for all that takes away private Health Insurance and reparations. Are you concerned that divide to the electorate and helps reelect the opposition . Its a great question. Im not a prophet. I got the last election wrong. [laughter] but, that was the question. If you remember in the democratic primary of 2016. And ive got to say i supported Bernie Sanders. I voted for hillary when she became the nominee. But, i supported Bernie Sanders for a couple reasons. One is, i do live in a social democratic country that is far to the left of where he is. Some of these things just seem selfevident to me. But the other thing is, i saw how excited my kids got which is really quite interesting to see a bunch of 20yearolds saying, hes just telling the truth. This is what needs to happen. I havent made a decision on who to support yet which is actually lovely that theres more than one candidate id be happy to support. Id be happy to support virtually anyone. Theres more than one good candidate. So im not making a decision yet. But i think turnout and excitement is going to be at least as an poor and as anything else. By just having a sense of the heads nodding in this room. I bet a lot of people can remember how important turnout was in 2008. I knocked on doors for barack obama. Im sure a lot of you did as well. We cant forget that we need to get out the vote of people who think it doesnt matter. I was wondering if you could discuss the reemergence of antisemitism in the United States and globally. Seems to me when these events occur, and we see this reemergence of jew hating an ask of violence against jews. Seems like an obvious harbinger of dividing lines in society. Antisemitism to me is also sort of aware of expressing hatred for outsiders. I know its kind of a deep question but i was wondering if you could address that issue . Im told i have five more minutes. Let me try to address it briefly. I agree with you sir. I think its actually something to worry about. And it is about being afraid of outsiders. Theres something about living in a globalized world which is very different from living in an interNational World. The harbingers of internationalism are now apple and amazon. Its Global Commerce rather than anything Like International values. Which is why i think so many people are turning to nationalism and being afraid of outsiders. Thats a general statement. I am worried about the rise of antisemitism. And i am worried about Something Else which is that, although 75 percent of American Jews oppose the current policy of benjamin netanyahu. Often people on the left have swallowed Benjamin Netanyahus lie that he represents the jews of the world. A lot of people on the left, progressive people opposed to the way the palestinians are being treated kind of stopped speaking against antisemitism. So it is up to jews to stand up and say, look, first of all, we do not support racist policies in israel. Its not even just racist against palestinians. Its racist against ethiopians. We dont support that. Please remember, dont let antisemitism cloud your vision about that. Short answer to a long question. Yes sir. Im grateful for your talk. Youve inspired me today. One of the monuments in berlin that really moved me and forgive me i cant remember the name. But its the overturned chair by the table. Its in a courtyard and it looks like a family has been having dinner and some of knocked the door and they literally had to flee in that moment. The name escapes me. Ive lived in berlin for 25 years and im not sure which one youre talking about. But there are 423 monuments. I will find it on my phone. It brought up for me the idea that sometimes things can change in a moments notice. And there can be a double or something that just suddenly. World just watching trump and some things being said and then suddenly theres something outside the door and you have to flee. I wondered if you can talk about the tenor of the times and this idea with berlin, when things can change overnight. And are we really still asleep in some way to the potential of totalitarianism in that way . You are absolutely right. Things can change. Not in a minute but in a very short space of time. The hardest thing about writing this book is i began it in a different era. Although it was only late 2015. I finished it last summer. Three years later. And you know, the world changed. So we are living in the middle of that. We are also living at a moment where certain People Living in the white house and certain organizations like fox news want to keep it that way. Want to keep the signals coming so fast that its very hard for us to focus on the underlying stream. We are in danger of slipping into a fascist program. Somebody whos been writing almost ceaselessly. Who writes for salon. Com and scott a podcast. There are people have been warning from the very beginning and trying to interview other people saying, these are the signs. None of us know whats going to happen right now. Especially in the past couple weeks, you know. Whether republicans will step up finally to the plate or leave the sinking ship. I dont want to make any predictions. But i thank you for the reminder that it all goes way faster than you think. Somebody asked you at oxford when i was talking, did i think they were trying to understand trump voters. Did i think that hitlers base responded to him the way trump voters respond to him . I had to say, i hate to say this. I really hate to say this. But the first few years of hitlers administration. They were terrible if you are communist or a social democrat. But many of them went into exile. They werent all that bad if you were a jew. Not until 1936, did you have the laws. So the first three years, it would have been reasonable for people to say, this is going to blow over. This is a horrible government. But, im a german citizen but im staying here which is how a lot of people lost their lives. Very few people left before 1936. So the rest of the population, you have this horrible inflation and unemployment. So he actually kept some of his promises to his base. Unlike other people i hate naming. So, that is worth remembering as well. That hitler did not start with gas chambers. He didnt even start with laws banning jews from marrying or go to school. You always start small. Thank you. [applause] thank you, susan. I reminded you can buy her book in the middle of the plaza. She will be up at the signing tent at 3 00. [inaudible conversations] for 40 years cspan has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court and Public Policy events from washington, d. C. And around the country so you can make up your own mind. Created by cable in 1979, cspan is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of the government. Next on booktvs after words republican senator rand paul of kentucky provides the history of socialism and argues there is a new threat of socialist thinking on the rise in america. Hes interviewed by republican congressman matt gaetz of florida. After words is a weekly Interview Program with relevant guest hosts interviewing top nonfiction authors about their latest work. Host senator paul youre one of the most interesting people in american politics and especially in the republican party. I was a fan of yours long before i got the chanceo