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Alex Tabarrock has an interesting post on the role Hayek and The Road to Serfdom played in the re-education of Nazi POWs at American prison camps. His remarks were prompted by this article in the Washington Post. Quotable:

Concordia's canteens and library were filled with books that had been banned by the Nazis. [Heinrich] Treichl read and reread the American bestseller The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek, which detailed the flaws in socialism and contrasted it with democracy.

Treichl returned home to occupied Austria, carrying books from Getty and his beloved copy of The Road to Serfdom. He still has them. He married a Jewish woman and helped her family reclaim their publishing empire, became head of Austria's largest bank and, later, served as honorary president of the Austrian Red Cross. Now 91, Treichl is known in Austria for his generosity and his habit of speaking hard truths. "I'm very American," he says with a grin.