And we puzzle over how the Germans could fall under Hitler’s spell. Human’s are infinitely capable of irrational delusion. Especially when they’re bullied into it.
For Germany very easy. The NSDAP delivered on every major item on its domestic policy platform. All of the things the other non revolutionary party’s kept stumbling around and mumbling about ‘difficulties’ and ‘complexities’ and opposing ‘impossible simplicities’ happened like ligtening. The economy stabalised, large scale public works and remilitarization programs boomed the capital goods sector, general public immorality was squashed (the throngs of whores of both and trans types that made catching a train a bad scene vanished,) schools changed to emphasize good citizenship, common brotherhood, and decent behavior. The ‘new Germany’ quit apologising constantly and became a clearly assertive national power. The problem of perpetual illegal immigration from the east and south east was clamped down on and virtually ended. Hitler also proved himself to be the most formidable national leader since Bismarck and by results of his foreign diplomacy the man who was creating the ‘unbreakable super nation’, Some traditionalists and liberal civil liberties types and some Christian types didn’t the harsh subtext of the Reich but they were numerically insignificant. In the words of an American observer,’The people of Germany feel they have a real future not mere survival, and that is what none of the other countries in Europe with the possible exception of Italy, have.
For decades Americans have been a partially fake narrative about WW2 and its coming. Americans were told the German’s obeyed out of fear not at all they obeyed because they strongly identified with the NSDAP as the savior of the country. German’s didn’t fight as really well as they did at the squad level out of fear as the Soviets often did, they fought hard and well out of conviction and patriotism. We should our ‘woke’ military would be a quarter as brave and well motivated.