Milgram framed his American studies as preparation for a German-character project

Evidence

Consistent with his goal of shedding light on the Holocaust, Milgram had planned to follow up his American series with some obedience experiments in Germany, as he wrote to Gordon Allport, his former mentor and later col­ league at Harvard, in a letter dated October 10, 1960: “Next year I … plan to undertake a long series of experiments on obedience. While this series will stand by itself as an independent study, it is also preparation for the project on German character—in which comparative experimental measures of ‘obe­ dience to authority’ will play an important part.” — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 598

Categorization

• XREF: Directly connects to the expectation that high obedience should be a German trait — the culturalist explanation Milgram’s own pilot results undercut.