Part I introduces the five protagonists of the book by discussing their childhood and youth during and after World War II. What made them choose economics? What made them amenable to the ideology of Marxism-Leninism as taught in their undergraduate studies? This chapter focuses on their experiences with Nazism, their socialization in the Hitler Youth, and the discrimination they were subjected to because of their ethnic or religious identity. It also highlights the postwar tumults that made them prone to the postwar propaganda on securing peace in the name of socialism and the opportunities to engage in ideological confrontation during the first cleansing waves at university.