Look whatever Elon Has done, using the title "Ordinary Men" which is a book that is an exploration of how an police battalion in Nazi Germany became accustomed to and learned to enjoy killing Jews is a bit over the top.

https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Soluti...

Can you imagine Palo Alto HS running this experiment today? Parents and students would be enraged. The teacher would be fired.

The point was to show how easy it is to get caught up in such movements (all of us are susceptible). There’s a good book that shares this story from an ordinary german citizen:

https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Soluti...

If you haven't read Ordinary Men (https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Soluti...) by Christopher Browning I think you would like it, the book is about who follows appalling orders, why they do, and what does (and doesn't) happen to them if they don't.

I think that most of us like to think we would be the moral exception, it offers some mental comfort, but it's far more likely that we won't.

> The myth of "unwilling collaborators," and "forced to work for Germans under a gunpoint" was invented after the war by political forces who got in bed with 3rd reich, and then wanted to save their skin from pitchforks when they lost.

Not to mention Ordinary Men [0], the dynamic that makes your average citizens with no ideological indoctrination become the murderers of tens of thousands of Jews, to the point they'd shoot at small children with a clear conscience. They'd even have the option not to directly take part in the murders, but still do.

Again, these were average, ordinary people. No strong party affiliation, SS membership or anything.

The fact that Christopher Browning's book was a revelation when it came out shows how little we've learned from WWII. We might have put the lid on undisguised antisemitism, but we have merely channeled its otherising roots elsewhere. Otherwise, we wouldn't find it so easy to turn a blind eye to the settler colonialism happening right now in Palestine.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Soluti...

Rubicon by Tom Holland - https://www.amazon.com/Rubicon-Tom-Holland/dp/1400078970

Christopher Browning, Ordinary Germans Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution - https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Soluti...

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth https://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/0...

The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates - https://www.amazon.com/Poison-King-Legend-Mithradates-Deadli...

To End All Wars - https://www.amazon.com/End-All-Wars-Rebellion-1914-1918/dp/0...

The Northern Crusades - https://www.amazon.com/Northern-Crusades-Second-Eric-Christi...

The Fall of Constantinople 1453 - https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Constantinople-1453-Canto-Classi...

Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane - https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Enlightenment-Central-Conquest-T...

The Indian Ocean - https://www.amazon.com/Indian-Ocean-Seas-History/dp/04154453...

Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire - https://www.amazon.com/Indian-Summer-Secret-History-Empire/d...