Thank you Ian. I think I understand what you mean and it is really difficult to see how far the taking on of our personal responsability can lead — although we might not do “great” things.

We just watched the video https://youtu.be/-1FjRfQ1AhM where, in the second half, exactly this question is discussed: how are we responsable for Hitler’s coming into his power? Everyone of the Germans were responsable for what they chose. My father was intrigued as a young man of Hitlers message — until he was a soldier in the invincible war and his comrades were killed around him. (I found some letters where he began to express his doubts, his “waking up” to reality. But once in the game he was there and lucky enough to be a war prisoner for only 15 months or so — and survived that, too.

Maybe there would have been a time when he could have seen what was coming and could have taken different decisions, join the resistance (then I wouldn’t be born, probably) or flee to another country. I don’t know. He was 6 when in our home town the Nazis took over power, so he literally grew into the distorted truth. What children learn in early life they believe to be true. So almost impossible to realise in time the game which was played among the Germans and Hitlers capacity to turn their minds in the direction he envisioned.