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Well, I think the answer to that is two fold. And I am going to speak in VERY general simplified terms and you can rip this up with 'ifs' 'buts' etc..

A.) If you look at Hitlers rise to power he was a brilliant speaker and had an unbelievable propaganda machine lead by Goebbels. Keep in mind that you didn't have a second way of getting information. He said what people wanted to hear and his mass gatherings had from what I am told a unbelievable energy. People got inspired and so caught up in the ideology that they simply wouldn't believe some of the horrible things that were said. I know for a fact several soldiers that thought the Americans were making the concentration camps up or were fooled by the Russians etc. (when shown pictures in prison camps). It took a little while for a lot of them of what actually happened. Everyone knew about the KZ's but I don't think people themselves could actually comprehend what went on in them (And I am obviously am NOT talking about SS guards, etc.). B.) The country was at a time of war in 1939. Laws were stricter and you wouldn't dare to betray your country at the time of need (And remember Hitler justified the wars to the German people in a similiar way Bush did the Iraq war to America. With the difference that Bush did actually do the right thing vs. Hitler selling the country a sham). The regular soldier most times just cared about one thing which was "Live another day". Having read quite a bit of personal war accounts you will be surprised how plain numb people were after months of fighting. This keep in mind went on for 5-6 years for soldiers that fought the entire war.

When I talk about Germans being victims I talk about a general sense of buying into Hitler's tyranny as well as the millions of people that got displaced, killed, maimed etc. during and after the war. A friend of mines family was kicked out of Sudetendeutschland even though his family had lived there for over a hundred years. The lost everything they owned and more. Now, this happened to millions of people on ALL sides which I all call victims of war. What about the many women that were systematically raped by the Russians? (And I am not going into the justification part of it etc.)

Victims were on ALL sides which is the way war usually happens and the only point I was trying to make.

Victims were on ALL sides which is the way war usually happens and the only point I was trying to make.

Thanks for your thoughtful response; I don't disagree. I'm just worried that this trend toward Germans defining themselves as a whole as victims too closely paralleled the run-up to WWII, where Hitler created the same feeling of victimhood. The powers that be in the EU keep talking about "the end of history," and how conflict and tyranny in Europe have become impossible...but I think they're being dangerously naiive.

The fact is that it's only been a few generations since Germany started two world wars (and Prussia was an aggressor before that). Now, the bureaucratic wranglings in the EU by France and Germany sometimes seem to be geared toward their domination of Europe by political rather than military means. And this attempt at political domination is accompanied by some of the same rhetoric that was used to justify Germany's invasions in the run-up to WWII. It's unsettling, to say the least.