" Were I to become the scholar I once hoped to be, I would choose such moments of political embryology as my field of study, and concentrate first on Germany. I would choose Germany because in 1933 a handful of men had seized a modern state and made its people into the most hated nation in the world. In 1949 and 1950 I saw another handful of men take over in Germany- dull, dreary, plodding men- and saw them convert Germany in the next twenty years into a decent society. What frightened me then, and frightens me still, is how very few men it takes at the head of any state to give it its character of good or evil, of freedom, tyranny, torture, butchery or benevolence. "

― Theodore H. White , In Search of History