Intellectualism among the elites is not the same as intelectiosm among the working class. The elite tend to be silly and romantic in their view of the world and tend to thing of poverty as something appealing. "Let us all become the prolate." The working class intellectual looked around his cold little room and said, "Silly sods, let's all become bourgeoisie instead." And that was exactly what happened.
As to the Germans they were hungry. Hunger tends to strip away culture and learning until you are ready to say, "I will do anything, just give me food." The downfall of civilization soon follows. And yet even then they were less dangerous then the new breed of Environmentalist that are our current enemy because they wanted, above all, to live. They still viewed humans, (albeit they had interesting ideas on what a human was) as part of the natural order of things.
I apologize for the word mangling.