So I was reading this really intense Reddit thread the other day, you know, where someone was basically asking about regular German citizens after World War II—not the officials, just everyday people who were never charged with a crime. The person posting was clearly wrestling with some heavy stuff, drawing parallels to current events and even mentioning how it’s making them distance themselves from their own family. They were wondering, did those citizens ever really come to terms with what they’d supported, or did they just shrug it off? It’s one of those questions that feels historical but also painfully current.
The discussion that followed was anchored by this incredibly detailed response from someone who, while not a historian of Germany, studies the modern American extremist right. They pulled together all these polls and sources, and the picture they painted was… well, sobering. Apparently, in 1945, right after the war, a larger percentage of Germans actually thought Nazism was a good idea than had voted for Hitler back in 1932. Can you believe that? Even with the country in ruins, only about a third felt the German people were responsible for the war. And get this—support for Hitler lingered for *decades*. There were quotes from polls in the 50s and 60s showing a significant chunk of people still viewing him as a great statesman, or thinking his only real mistake was losing the war. That really hit home for a lot of people in the thread; you could see the dread in the replies, with folks saying it was exactly what they feared but needed to hear.
The conversation then branched out into the “why.” Why did that affinity persist? The original commenter pointed to things like economic policy and a perceived strength, and the scapegoating of enemies—many just didn’t like the outcome of the war, not the ideology itself. Someone else chimed in, wondering how much of this was due to the relentless propaganda, especially on the youth through the Hitler Youth program. It’s that classic nature vs. nurture debate, right? Was it an ingrained belief, or something forcefully taught? The implication was that propaganda played a massive, long-lasting role, and that reversing it is a monstrously difficult task.
There was also this interesting note about the different paths in East and West Germany, with the West having a much less intense “de-Nazification” process, partly because the Allies wanted experienced anti-Soviet officers on their side. And even though some from the younger post-war generation were utterly revolted—leading to activist and even terrorist groups in the 60s and 70s trying to purge any Nazi association—the thread highlighted that neither side of the Berlin Wall fully eradicated these sympathies. Recent years have shown a worrying resurgence in far-right ideologies there, which kinda brought the whole discussion full circle back to the original poster’s anxieties about history repeating itself.
The overall mood in the comments was a mix of gratitude for the detailed, sourced answer and a kind of grim enlightenment. People were thanking the commenter for the clarity, but you could tell they were unsettled. It wasn’t just an academic history lesson; it felt like a cautionary tale about how deeply political beliefs can be rooted, how they can survive even catastrophic failure, and how the reckoning with a painful past is never really a clean, finished process. It left me thinking, you know, about how collective memory works, and how easy it is for people to separate a leader’s actions from their ideology if they feel personally benefited in some way. Really heavy stuff.
