"Fascism or worse. People do things where they feel they're backs are against the wall and their survival is at stake
In the 1920's and '30's, the German middle-class was increasingly scared."
Let's complete the sentence: "...so, in their fear and panic, they rushed to a dicator and went goosestepping off with him into national suicide."
I think they were probably screwed either way.
If Hitler had not come along, there's a good chance that Stalin would have engineered a revolution in Germany (as the communists almost succeeded in doing in 1918-1919) and from there into the rest of Europe.
The French would not have resisted. The Communist party was very strong there (and still is). I tend to think the weakness of French resistance to the German advance had something to do with the Hitler/Stalin pact, and the Reds being told to impede the resistance of the French side
At the end of the century, I think the body count would have been the same or greater, whether from Hitler, or from Stalin liquidating the middle class