I’ve been listenening to the audio book “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”. Something that has jumped out at me so far is Hitlers ability to draw out the “best worst” version of everyone around him. He was, in a lot of ways, a very unstable guy, and people like that tend to drag everyone around them down. I am just having a hard time understanding how the interpersonal relationships around him (with some notable exceptions) managed to stay as strong and as committed as they were, especially considering that none of the men Hitler surrounded himself with were Boy Scouts either. What I’m asking is basically the question that many people have asked since the end of ww2, how the hell did the nazis come to power? I get the mechanics of the events surrounding their rise, and even some of the emotional aspects as well, but both of these things seem insufficient when you consider the type of person Hitler himself was.