Opposing Evil

"A few years ago, while looking for a good read, I came across a book by Ron Rosenbaum, Explaining Hitler. It turned out to be better than I thought it would be and I quickly read through it. I am not sure why, but events of recent weeks brought back to mind a question I had never quite resolved. How was it possible for a nation that had reached the highest educational and cultural levels to be taken over by a power so evil that it beggars the imagination? Somehow I had not realized that eight of the greatest universities ever established in Europe were in Germany, and they were all founded before Columbus sailed the voyage that discovered the New World. By 1776, when Americans were just deciding whom they were, the great German universities were 300 years old. Then I thought of the giants of music who arose in that world, men such as Bach and Beethoven, and the mystery only deepened."