Never did more that 1/3 of Germans vote for the Nazis in an election that wasn't completely rigged. While it is inexcusable that the German people did not try more actively to stop what was happening, the facts do not back up the idea that the Germans were some sort of innately evil people.
Up until the point before the 1930's, Germany was considered one of the least antisemitic countries in Europe. They were one of the first to emancipate the Jews and give them full political rights, and antisemitic parties routinely lost heavily at the polls. When the Conservative party adopted an antisemitic plank to its platform, its vote total went down significantly. Parties that existed solely as antisemitic parties combined got no more than a few percent of the vote. Even for the 1/3 of the people that did vote for the Nazis in the post WWI, antisemitism played not much of a factor in most people's votes. Most people were voting on the Nazis' economic promises, and antisemitism was played down by Hitler because he was afraid of what the Germans' reactions would be.
It is unacceptable what the Nazi regime did and what the German people allowed them to do in WWII. Abosolutely reprehensable. But it is equally reprehensable to wish that we used a nuclear weapon on the country for no reason at all other than revenge. Killing people for the sake of killing them is absolutely disgusting and no better than what the Nazis did. As for Dresden, the military significance of the bombing is dubious at best. There were little if no military targets of value, but there were thousands upon thousands of civilian refugees. Yes, the Nazis killed millions, but does that mean that we should in turn kill civilians as well? Russia killed millions of Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Germans, Poles, Georgians, Armenians and others. Does that mean that we should have nuked Moscow or St. Petersburg in 1946?
I hate the Nazis, but I dont hate the Germans. I hate communists, but I dont hate the Chinese or the Russians or the Cubans. The people of all these countries were coopted by their regimes, just as the Germans were by the Nazis. Germany had to be defeated. It had to be defeated completely. But should we have tried to exterminate the 'evil' Germans just as they exterminated the 'evil' Jews? Hell no.
Thanks for putting it into words.
It is dishonest to contend that the word "holocaust" should be allowed to apply to only one situation of one group of people. Unless, of course, we seriously believe that they are worth more than any other brand or group of people (in other words, a superior race).