Quote Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh View Post
Interesting bit of history. Had not read of this before. Brave souls.
They were Christians too. Catholics. They expected that their appeal would be succesful in Germany's south, and in Austria.
They themselves did not expect to find a listening ear in the sternly protestant north and east.
It's good ammunition in a debate with anti-papists and those vile secularists in general! Because despite having gone through the Hitlerjugend, these students had still been brought up in the long tradition of European civilisation through their church. This conserved a minimum of values, prevented a complete overthrow of all values.

Quote Originally Posted by PJ
It was guesswork motivated by bias against the Nazis, not hard evidence. It did happen to be very correct, of course.
Are you kidding me? Bias and guesswork? That then just accidently happened to turn out to be nearly spot on?

The imminent German catastrophe could have been seen coming forever. Events could've unfolded differently - wars won or lost, peaces made - but the destruction of German civilisation in one way or another was a given from januari 1933, for those with eyes to see. It was the very project of Hitler, even if he sold it as 'in Germany's best interest'.