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henkster: "One theme was "How could we have let this happen?..."

The first theme is fairly self-explanatory, as the Germans sought to examine how an educated, advanced and developed country with a rich tradition of cultural and artistic accomplishment could descend into barbaric depravity.
They have done an excruciating amount of soul-searching in this regard..."

Thanks so much for yet another insightful essay, they always make me think I should increase my monthly contribution to Free Republic.
And, sometimes I do... ;-)

In response:

"Educated", "Advanced", etc... maybe, but fundamentally modern inheritors of European history back to Roman Empire times, as updated by recent examples from Napoleon and Bismarck.
In sum, by 1914 Germany was a great empire, after hundreds of years of steady success and territorial expansion.
In 1914 Germany's rulers intended to continue that success by conquering "lebensraum" in the East, and making Germany the dominant European power.

Germany's First World War failure led to a rethinking of just what it meant to be German, and the result was Hitler -- most importantly combining North and South Germans (Austrians), a "voice of the people", certainly of the average German soldier, who lost heart and surrendered in November 1918.
Hitler would instill powerful motivation and courage in Germany's next generation of warriors.

So, the imperial plan which resulted from Wilson's "peace without victory" (and as predicted by people like US General Pershing) was to have a "round two" in 20 years.

"Round two" began in 1939 with huge technological and conceptual advances -- no more trench warfare, now highly mobile Blitzkrieg.
So the WWII idea of European conquest did not come from Hitler, he was merely the instrument of its accomplishment.
That idea was basic to the old Keiser-Reich.

As was the idea of turning Eastern Europe into medieval principalities with lords of unlimited power over surf/slaves -- life unworthy of life.

So what was new in Germany's "round two"?
Were mass exterminations new? Not really.
What about the Holocaust?

Yes, the Holocaust was new to Germany, though certainly not to the world.
Hitler himself referenced Turkey's genocide against Christian Armenians, pointing out that today nobody remembers or cares about it.

And mass deaths through starvation and brutality were Stalin's specialty -- so it's not even known: if or when Hitler's ordered murders ever exceeded in number those of old Stalin.
So Hitler did not invent the idea that millions must die to accomplish ideological goals.
He had only to pattern on Stalin, which he did.

But Nazis had a little something that Soviets did not: 1) the remnants of conscience, meaning they didn't so much enjoy machine-gunning down civilians, women & children.
And 2) a talent for engineering "outside the box" (ahem, German engineering) far beyond Soviet & other brutal regimes' imaginations.

And so the "Jewish question" was answered by engineering -- railroad supplied camps equipped with gas chambers & crematoria for the mass production of... non-existence.

In short and in summary, the Big Lie here is not what they did in WWII, but their insistence today on how "educated" & "advanced" they previously had been.
In fact, they were ignorant fools, puffed up to think of themselves as "superior" to everyone else.
Truly educating such blithering idiots cost the lives of tens of millions (mostly non-Germans) and unimaginable suffering by those who survived.

This could & should all be expressed in biblical terms, but I must leave that to others here far better qualified.