The German story is worthless without recounting Germany’s history from 1920 on. I’ve met a lot of uneducated people who simply didn’t understand why we rebuilt Japan, and to a lesser extent Germany after WWII. Many seemed to think it was misplaced altruism or compassion.
It was neither. We had learned our lesson. Germany was heavily punished at Versailles, and as a result a broken Germany was ripe for a man like Hitler. Desperate people will seek any port in a storm, and they did. They latched on to the first leader who appeared to be able to deliver any level of prosperity and any sense of pride. He just happened to be the epitome of evil.
Many forget that after WWI, the Weimar Republic was a huge CF. According to reports I have read, old women and children were starving in the streets. People loaded up wheelbarrows full of money just to buy a loaf of bread. Food was almost impossible to find in the cities. Many Germans felt they had been betrayed by their leaders regarding the surrender to the allies, there was anger and there was despair.
From other accounts, I have read that the streets became a battleground with Socialists, Marxists, social democrats, Freikorps, Anarchists, etc. fighting for days on end.
Civilians who had never heard a shot fired through all of WWI suddenly found themselves in the middle of a type of civil war.
So, it was no surprise that Adolf and the Boys came along and promised (and delivered) an end to the nightmare that Germany had become, they delivered an end to starvation and restored pride to Germans.
One other point I would like to make here is that in general, the common German soldier was just that. Farm boys, students, laborers and shopkeepers. Very few were party members, and they were given little choice about their future.
Like it or not, these are the facts. It is ironic that Hitler offered “hope and change”, but not ironic that a desperate people facing what they were facing were drawn to someone like Hitler.
That hunger for leadership is a powerful thing. Who among us isn't craving strong conservative leadership right now? We could well be swayed by someone who would go too far. And many here would not consider it a bridge too far if it was against the hated leftists.