I post this to inform that sadly, no it was not so for most. It was easy. Following brutal orders mindlessly is easy. History shows that again and again.
America is a most fortunate place, it was founded by those, who while committed to the Law (of Nature's God) and an orderly moral society, were of a nature where they strongly refused to mindlessly follow orders.
Maybe I am projecting myself into their situation, as you say. For me it would be an incredibly gut-wrenching time. For the people who made assassination attempts on Hitler (what were there? 17 different attempts?) I’m sure it was gut-wrenching.
Maybe for the rest it was just inconvenient that the smell of burning flesh spoiled the mood of their tea party.
There were not even 10 righteous people in Sodom, and Lot’s immediate family had more than 10 in it. So maybe you’re right. Maybe for such heinous things to be accepted it must have been the easiest road to just go along with it.
That’s how we ended up with the financial crash too - too many people thinking that EVERYBODY couldn’t be wrong. And the whole philosophy of “too big to fail” only feeds the idea that as long as the whole herd is together there is no need to worry about it walking off the cliff.