Who was responsible for the holocaust?

[Colin]

Well, didn't Stalin and his Communist allies actually kill more people than Hitler did?

Well there were no Communist allies for Stalin until the post-War. Both men were murderous dictators and two of the most vile people in history. Stalin just had more time than Hitler to do his dirty work.

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Well Stalin was a random killer, a man constantly trying to protect himself from supposed "deceit" and made up of a very large paranoid streak that spread throughout the entire nation. Most of his killings were not genocidal but were because of his paranoia and need to control. Hitler on the other hand was genocidal he killed specific portions of the population in a deliberate manner much different from Stalin's ruthless but random killings. He had a destinct plan that first called for the killing of the Jews and then either the enslavement of Slavic peoples or the killing of all Slavs in order to create a pure reich.

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Well most of those sent to Australia only had to work a certain amount of time before they were given their freedom and they could do as they pleased. Madagascar would have been a perpetual prison for all involved. Most likely the ones who got in the way of authorities would have been ruthlessly killed. It wouldn't even be like a British prison colony it would be an island ghetto for the Jews, nothing more than the Warsaw ghetto on a much larger scale.

This is also basically a summary for Robert Harris' novel "Fatherland".

While I hated the book Robert Harris did his homework when it came to Hitler's post-War intentions and his view of the Third Reich post-War is probably the closest to what would have actually happened in that eventuality.

I guess my question goes into the realm of Alternative History but I'll ask it. How long would the Reich have gone on after Hitlers death?

Well most have stated that Hitler had shown signs of early Parkinson's Disease as early as 1936. These symptoms were intensified by the stress of the war. In my opinion, if he had this disease, I don't think he would have lasted into the fifties. I don't think he could have lasted any longer than Stalin did and that's being quite optomistic concerning his condition. Most likely after Hitler died you'd have a battle between Speer and Himmler for control of the Reich. Himmler would most likely win and take control of the Reich until he would die sometime in the 60's at which time I think you'd get the more technocratic Speer in power which would bring in a new generation of leadership into the Reich. I would guess probably by the late 70's the whole thing would start to collapse as the actual reason for the Reich's existance would have been so far removed that the new generations would revolt against the supression of freedom and the undemocratic government. As for what would happen I can't tell after that. The Poles, Lithuanians, Czechs, and other Slavs would be pretty damn angry so we could have, on the worse end, major race wars between German settlers and Polish, Czech, Slovak, and other "natives".

Following the defeat of Hitler's army, in his summer home were found hand written papers calling for "Operation Ikarus" a plan by Hitler to take over Iceland and then from there to launch an invasion of the U.S. beginning with a bombing of NYC.

I both Wikipedia searched and Google searched Operation Ikarus. I was unable to find any indication that the planned invasion of Iceland was anything more than the last step in German control of Scandinavia and a retaliation for the British Operation Fork, which was an invasion of Iceland to keep it out of German hands after the surrender of the Danish government. Even if Hitler had taken over Iceland it is still too far away from the American mainland to mount an effective bombing campaign. From Iceland's main airforce base at that time, Keflavik, to New York was roughly 2600 miles. The longest range German bomber ever made, the HE227 of which only 15 were produced, can only fly roughly 3700 miles, meaning that any mission would have to be one way and, unlike one-way missions like Dolittle's raid on Tokyo, the bombers would not be able to land in friendly territory once they had completed their mission. Take this into account with the Nazis complete and utter lack of experience with amphibious assaults, the few that were tried in WWII were horribly executed, and I doubt that placing a few bombers in Iceland would have led to Nazis storming the streets of Pittsburgh. Especially since if the British capitulated at any time the Americans would most likely take over Iceland, as we did with Greenland, would make this very unlikely.

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The Amerika Bomber was mostly going to be used to scare the Americans not to produce a long range version of the Battle of Britain, which was impossible even using the most advanced weaponry of 1945. It would mostly be used to try and bring the war, as much as it could, to America's shores so that we'd think about withdrawing out of the European theater. Then again the most likely way that Hitler could have won the War would have been the capitulation of Britain in 1940 or 1941, at which point the "Amerika bomber" was not even on the drawing boards, it was maybe in the heads of some engineers at Heinkel, Messerschmidt,  Junkers or Focke-Wolf but was not being developed. By 1945 most of these weapons were nothing more than devices to slow the inevitable not to bring a nation to its knees.

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I'm sure there were plans for it, hell America had plans on how to attack Canada, but just because there were plans doesn't mean that A) they would have ever tried a stunt like this and B) that they could pull it off. At most this would be a daring raid to try and aid the Japanese by slowing down American supply lines to the Pacific, a Nazi version of the Dolittle raid on Tokyo, not anything that would bring America to its knees. A way to disrupt American shipping to the Nazi ally the Japanese and perhaps allow the rebuilding of a tenuous supply line between Germany and Japan.

None, absolutely none of these things, is definitive proof or evidence that Hitler wanted to "take over the world" or that he was bent on "world conquest". Most of these plans range between the mundane that have been twisted into the crazy, "OMG Hitler's going to use Iceland to attack us", the fanciful, the raid on the Panama Canal, or the "we can't take much more of this Fuhrer" type weapon, the Amerika Bomber being nothing more than a way to strike a little last bit of terror into his enemies much like the V1 and V2 missiles. In the end they were all ways of winning the war for the Nazis but winning the War doesn't mean that the Wehrmacht would be marching down The Mall in Washington or down Fifth Avenue in New York. The Allies were able to march through the streets of Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin because we had bases on the European continent to begin with. There were no oceans to cross or "Amerika bombers" to make. All the Allies had to do was cross the English Channel and fight our way in from both sides of Germany.

There is no easy way to island-hop the Atlantic like the American forces did in the Pacific. Try making an amphibious landing on Greenland or Baffin Island, it makes Tarawa, Iwo Jima and Saipan look like a breeze. Anyway that you look at it America, until the advent of the first transcontinental bombers in the early 1950s, was protected by her oceans, much like other nations such as Australia or remote location in comparison to our enemies helped us to be spared the ravages of war.

[bullmoose88]

It couldn't have been the Germans. From 1939-1945 they were all on vacation.

[KillerPollo]

idk. But i believe that the Japs were the most ruthless and cold-blooded killers. WAY more than the Nazis. I;m sure that the Japs did a hell of alot more massacre than the Germans would have ever dreamt of doing.

[HappyWarrior]

Finally!  Something we can agree on lol.  The Japanese were alot less picky and more brutul with their victims.  They executed anyone who did'nt have information they captured.  The Nazis on the other hand targeted certain people and did it like machines.  The Japanese severed the heads of those they captured.

[12th Doctor]

Sorry to bust your "Adolf Hitler was bent on world conquest" bubble but, in reality, from his writings on what he would do in the post-War and his views on the rest of the world he would have basically disengaged from the rest of the world while solidifying the Reich's control over the only continent that, in Hitler's mind, meant anything, Europe. He wanted to bring all of Europe under his dominion and, especially, use Britain, under a puppet monarch, to do whatever bidding he wanted in world affairs outside of Europe. Also once you get outside of Europe alot of problem occur, such as bumping into the great East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere or American global interests, which Germany really couldn't piss off. Hitler most likely thought that after the War, if he won it, there would be a cold war between the United States and Germany, since the United States was one of the few "civilized" nations that Hitler couldn't control in his "Europe is everything" strategy.

All in all a victorious Third Reich would be more "isolationist" than the Soviet Union was, since it wouldn't have the ideological imperative to spread revolution, and would have left most non-European and non-American foreign policy to satelitte states like the British Empire. The "Hitler bent on World Domination" is about as much of a fiction as the "Hitler bent on invading the US" is, ie both were basically made up for war propaganda means during the 40s. Not saying that a Europe only Hitler would be any better, I shudder to think what horrible things he could have accomplished with even more time to rule, just not the "Hitler takes over the world" type scenario people think would happen.

The problem with deportation is that the Nazis wouldn't have just left them there and said, "Okay this is your Jewish only state don't bug us again." According to what I can find on Plan Madagascar the whole island would be run as a very very large ghetto, with SS patroling the streets and the Jewish people only given the veneer of independence when in fact they were basically being held in a prison by the government of the Third Reich. The whole island would just be a very large and slightly more free and open prison camp.

Mostly true.  People honestly don't understand Hitler's race philosophy.  It wasn't based on the rantings of one insane man.  It was very much based on the ideas of "scientific racism" that was very prominant, esspecially in Germany, at that time.

Hitler believed that all people had a "homeland" and those that didn't were inferior, blood sucking races, who deserved to be exterminated (Jews, Gypsies, etc).  There was much more to it than that (for instance, Hitler's association with the occult, his hatred of Catholics, etc.), but that was the basic concept.  He believed that Germans were the master race, but he was willing the grant each non-inferior race (esspecially the Brits and the Italians) a homeland of their own.  He sought to reconquer all the lands that had once been "German" (such as Northern France).  He desired to leave the Brits alone, but keep an eye on them.

Hitler's desire to conquer the slavic countries was also Historically rooted.  Drang Nach Osten (Drive to the East) had been a part of German cultural ideology since the times of the Holy Roman Empire.  The basic idea being that it was Germany's destiny to conquer right to the Urals.

The truth is, Hitler probably didn't care how he got rid of the Jews, but he wanted to get rid of them.  No one twisted his arm.  So to blame anyone else is pointless because it dodges the obvious facts.

[12th Doctor]

BTW... Hitler's anti-Catholic preoccupation also had strong roots in German culture.  The Kulturkampf was still very much in the mind of many Germans.

[KillerPollo]

Finally!  Something we can agree on lol.  The Japanese were alot less picky and more brutul with their victims.  They executed anyone who did'nt have information they captured.  The Nazis on the other hand targeted certain people and did it like machines.  The Japanese severed the heads of those they captured.

I think that westerners pay too much attention to the European Holocaust, where in fact the Asian side of it was much worse... Unlike with Germany, in Japan the holocaust was indiscriminant.

[MasterJedi]

Let's all bitch at Mao instead, through all this crap he killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined!

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Let's all bitch at Mao instead, through all this crap he killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined!

[KillerPollo]

Let's all bitch at Mao instead, through all this crap he killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined!

AAAAAND! to all you atheist bigots! YEAS! Mao WAS an atheists, so his killings was not because of religion like most dumfounded atheists say when they diss religion and say it has killed everyone while they praise atheism.

[12th Doctor]

Let's all bitch at Mao instead, through all this crap he killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined!

Indeed.


I am about to make the most contraversial statement I have ever made in the history of the forum....






Hitler was NOT insane.  At least not initially.  Hitler was just like everyone else.  Granted, he was a meglomaniac with severe narrsistic personality, but he could have been anyone.  People liek to think otherwise, because it si comforting.  But anyone with Hilter's "vision" and "talents" in that kinda environment would have produced similar outcomes.

[12th Doctor]

Perhaps I should explain further.  Anyone in that situation, as Germany was post-WWI could have done what Hitler did, because any populace put under those conditions would have offered the same person the same level of power.


Now, if you add in the historical forces in Germany, it is no wonder that Hitler made the choices he did.  And it is no wonder that the German people chose to follow him, or at least turn a blind eye to what he was doing (Jews... what Jews?  Honestly, I don't remember there being that many Jews in this town to begin with.  So, I didn't really notice they were gone).

It's no mystery.  Stop placating your own emotions by saying "well, Hitler was a madman... plain and simple".  80,000,000 people can't be completely insane.

[AkSaber]

It's no mystery.  Stop placating your own emotions by saying "well, Hitler was a madman... plain and simple".  80,000,000 people can't be completely insane.

Also wasn't Hitler very persuasive with his speeches and addresses?

[Middle-aged Europe]

It's no mystery.  Stop placating your own emotions by saying "well, Hitler was a madman... plain and simple".  80,000,000 people can't be completely insane.

First, the number was closer to 65,000,000 back then...

Then the Holocaust wasn't something that was officially announced by the German government or the authorities. If at all, it was explained as a "relocation" of the Jewish population. Of course, a mass relocation isn't a very humane thing either (though not as bad as a genocide), so the question remains why only few Germans resisted to this alleged relocation.

The government also did everything possible to cover up the Holocaust. For example, members of the SS were obliged to keep it a secret under the threat of the death penalty. However, thousands of people were directly involved in organizing the whole thing and with a "conspiracy" of this magnitude it's unlikely that everyone involved is keeping his mouth shut and that nothing is leaked to the public.

So, many Germans could have (and actually have) guessed what's really going on... either through those kinds of "rumours" or by living relatively close to a concentration camp or ghetto etc. Of course, the fact that the Holocaust wasn't officially announced or acknowledged by the German authorities made it easy for many people to ignore what was happening.

As for the reason why they choose to ignore it... well, that's not such a complex puzzle. "Why interfere when it would only mean trouble for me and my family? If I raise my voice, what good what it do, except that I might getting send to a concentration camp as well? So, better the Jews than me. Besides, maybe those rumours aren't true anyway." That's how any form of tyranny or mass murder is possible in the end: a mix of cowardice, selfishness and ignorance. Others might have actually swallowed the propganda that Jews were evil etc.

The interesting question is, how many Germans actually were aware of the Holocaust at that time. Helmut James Graf von Moltke, a leading member of the resistance movement (the so-called "Kreisau Circle") estimated in 1943 that "nine tenth" of the German population were unaware of the genocide, which would mean that at least 10% knew what was going on.

Other sources (estimates and secret reports from various German government authorities of that time, surveys conducted by the Allies after 1945, polls conducted in West Germany in the 50ies and 60ies etc.) came to the conclusion that between 25% and 40% of the German population had knowledge of the Holocaust. Of course, there could be a high margin of error (meaning it's also possible that more than 50% knew of the Holocaust).

After the war, several leading politicians of West Germany, including President Theodor Heuss (1949-1959), President Richard von Weizsäcker (1984-1994) and Chancellor Helmut Schmidt (1974-1982) claimed that they had no knowledge of the Holocaust and heard the first time of it after the end of the war.

All in all, we can say that millions of Germans knew what was going on, while there were also millions of Germans who were unaware of the Holocaust. Whether you were aware of it or not depended on who you knew (for example soldiers returning from the front who witnessed some of the crimes comitted were) and how close to the locations (concentration camps etc.) of those crimes you lived/worked. The overwhelming majority of those who knew chose to do nothing, primarily out of cowardice and selfishness (fear to get in trouble with the Nazis themselves), sometimes also simply out of loyalty to the regime, because they were Nazis themselves or at least loyal to them for some reason.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That depends on what you mean by "responsible". Lot's to go over in this thread, at some point, though. Beware!

Anyways, as far as the historiographical debate over the Holocaust goes, I'm a Functionalist up until about 1942 or so. More or less. I could post an essay (or part of one) of mine if anyone wants...

[Gustaf]

It's no mystery.  Stop placating your own emotions by saying "well, Hitler was a madman... plain and simple".  80,000,000 people can't be completely insane.

Also wasn't Hitler very persuasive with his speeches and addresses?

My grandfather was in Germany for work in the late 30s and went to a Nazi rally with a friend to scowl at it (he was very much anti-Nazi and later married my grand-mother, a Jewish refugee). As he stands there and everyone is heiling he turns to his friend and sees that his hand is in the air. He then looks at his own hand and find that it is also up in a salute. At that point he took his friend with him and walked out. But to sum up, yes, it was probably very easy to get carried away by Hitler and the Nazi propaganda machine, much more so than we can grasp today.

[12th Doctor]

It's no mystery.  Stop placating your own emotions by saying "well, Hitler was a madman... plain and simple".  80,000,000 people can't be completely insane.

Also wasn't Hitler very persuasive with his speeches and addresses?

My grandfather was in Germany for work in the late 30s and went to a Nazi rally with a friend to scowl at it (he was very much anti-Nazi and later married my grand-mother, a Jewish refugee). As he stands there and everyone is heiling he turns to his friend and sees that his hand is in the air. He then looks at his own hand and find that it is also up in a salute. At that point he took his friend with him and walked out. But to sum up, yes, it was probably very easy to get carried away by Hitler and the Nazi propaganda machine, much more so than we can grasp today.

Many stories like that.  Hitler had an amazing ability to convince people to turn off their brains.

[12th Doctor]

It's no mystery.  Stop placating your own emotions by saying "well, Hitler was a madman... plain and simple".  80,000,000 people can't be completely insane.

First, the number was closer to 65,000,000 back then...

Then the Holocaust wasn't something that was officially announced by the German government or the authorities. If at all, it was explained as a "relocation" of the Jewish population. Of course, a mass relocation isn't a very humane thing either (though not as bad as a genocide), so the question remains why only few Germans resisted to this alleged relocation.

The government also did everything possible to cover up the Holocaust. For example, members of the SS were obliged to keep it a secret under the threat of the death penalty. However, thousands of people were directly involved in organizing the whole thing and with a "conspiracy" of this magnitude it's unlikely that everyone involved is keeping his mouth shut and that nothing is leaked to the public.

So, many Germans could have (and actually have) guessed what's really going on... either through those kinds of "rumours" or by living relatively close to a concentration camp or ghetto etc. Of course, the fact that the Holocaust wasn't officially announced or acknowledged by the German authorities made it easy for many people to ignore what was happening.

As for the reason why they choose to ignore it... well, that's not such a complex puzzle. "Why interfere when it would only mean trouble for me and my family? If I raise my voice, what good what it do, except that I might getting send to a concentration camp as well? So, better the Jews than me. Besides, maybe those rumours aren't true anyway." That's how any form of tyranny or mass murder is possible in the end: a mix of cowardice, selfishness and ignorance. Others might have actually swallowed the propganda that Jews were evil etc.

The interesting question is, how many Germans actually were aware of the Holocaust at that time. Helmut James Graf von Moltke, a leading member of the resistance movement (the so-called "Kreisau Circle") estimated in 1943 that "nine tenth" of the German population were unaware of the genocide, which would mean that at least 10% knew what was going on.

Other sources (estimates and secret reports from various German government authorities of that time, surveys conducted by the Allies after 1945, polls conducted in West Germany in the 50ies and 60ies etc.) came to the conclusion that between 25% and 40% of the German population had knowledge of the Holocaust. Of course, there could be a high margin of error (meaning it's also possible that more than 50% knew of the Holocaust).

After the war, several leading politicians of West Germany, including President Theodor Heuss (1949-1959), President Richard von Weizsäcker (1984-1994) and Chancellor Helmut Schmidt (1974-1982) claimed that they had no knowledge of the Holocaust and heard the first time of it after the end of the war.

All in all, we can say that millions of Germans knew what was going on, while there were also millions of Germans who were unaware of the Holocaust. Whether you were aware of it or not depended on who you knew (for example soldiers returning from the front who witnessed some of the crimes comitted were) and how close to the locations (concentration camps etc.) of those crimes you lived/worked. The overwhelming majority of those who knew chose to do nothing, primarily out of cowardice and selfishness (fear to get in trouble with the Nazis themselves), sometimes also simply out of loyalty to the regime, because they were Nazis themselves or at least loyal to them for some reason.

Oh please, the massive amnesia and naivity that seems to have hit Germany after the Allies came marching in was just some mechanism that the populace came up with both to lie to the Allied troops and to make themselves feel better.

To quote someone I know who served in Europe in WWII "You know what the amazing thing was, whenever we got to Germany?  There was not a single Nazi there.  Turns out, no one ever supported Hitler, and they all swore up and down that this was true."  He was being sarcastic, obviously.

But, "We would go to towns where we had been told that there were once large Jewish populations.  The whole towns were cleaned out.  When we asked the people what happened, far from claiming they didn't know, most of them never really remembered there being any Jews there at all.  Turns out, they had all forgotten there Jewish neighbors had existed, or, at the most, they didn't remember there being too many Jews in the town to begin with."

Do you think people needed to be told by the government that Jews, gypsies, etc were being killed in order for them to believe it? Words don't mean as much as we give them credit for today, people knew what was going on, they just found ways to justify it to themselves, or ignore it.  Hell, people in the US knew what was going on... saddly, many didn't care.  Churchill and FDR wanted to talk about it, but they both reasoned, probably rightly, that few people would want to fight a war to save Jews.  But they did act in ways that helped, by blowing up the railroads, etc.

That's a problem with today, we put way too much emphasis on what people say.  Pius XII get lambasted for his "silence".  Well, even if he had been completely silent, which he was not, people totally ignore the fact that he was at the center of coordinating an effort the ended up saving the lived of at least tens of thousands of Jews and allied POW's.  That he had Rome's Jewish leaders and their families smuggled into the Vatican.  That after the war, Rome's Chief Rabi converted to Catholicism and took the name of the Pope (Eugenio) to show his appreciation.  What would talk have accomplished?  Do you really think someone like Hitler who was totally unreasonable was going to sit back, or do you think he would have invaded the Vatican in 1943, killed the Pope, replaced him with an anti-Pope (one of the German or Spanish Bishops who were openly fascist) and used the files the Vatican had to hunt down all the Jews in hidding?  Most likely the latter.  This is like all those people who sit aroudn and think "If only Hitler would have not thrown away his army at Stalingrad"....  Its a mute point, because Hitler was Hitler.  He did what he wanted to, because he thought he was a living God, and it was "Stalingrad".  There is no "If only Hitler had seen the light".  Hitler was the light, in his own mind.

But I have majorly digressed... the point is, anyone who thinks the Germans needed to be told what was happening to the Jews, or thinks they didn't approve of it is only fooling themselves.  Now, if you want to say "it didn't become real to them until after they walked through the camps and saw the photos" then that is different.  But they knew.

[12th Doctor]

BTW... to explain something I siad earlier... I didn't mean Hitler was totally normal.  But, frankly, he was no different from anyother self-centered SOB you might see walking down the street that has a vendetta against a group and is convinced of his "destiny".  What made Hitler different wasthat with each and every improbable success, his ego and sense of indestructability get great and greater.  Any asshole in that situation would have done the same.

[Governor PiT]

The Nazi's as well as the Rothchilds and Presscott Bush.

[frihetsivrare]

The British and French governments were mainly responsible for giving Germany its terrible condition in the 1920s and early 30s.  The NSDAP merely played on the German's anger about the Treaty of Versailles and brainwashed them to support the nazis.  The NSDAP is mainly to blame for the Holocaust.  Prescott Bush, Britain, France, and many others share small parts of the blame. 

GERMANY DID NOT START THE 1ST WORLD WAR!  It, like every other European nation in the war, was entangled in an alliance, which did cause the war.  France and the UK are just as much to blame for that war as Germany.

[Governor PiT]

we could of prevented WWII by staying out of WWI.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I cannot blame the "Germans" for the holocaust.  There is not something innately evil about the German people that led to the Holocaust happening there.  We spend so much time going on and on and on about the Holocaust and yet I'd venture to guess that most Americans don't have a clue what Stalin did to the Russian people.  Many more died in his purges and uber-paranoia.

I blame, most of all, the upper ranks of the Nazi party in Germany for planning and carrying out the Holocaust.  Those that supported the Nazi party (which was most Germans) have blood on their hands even for not taking part physically... but they knew what was going on.

There were concentration camps that you could see into from the streets of surrounding villages.

But there were a lot of very specific things that went on that led to the Holocaust, and sociologists and psychologists have done experiments and studies that prove groupthink.  I forget who performed the experiments or what they're called.. but a man was told to administer some questions to a guy that he could not see, and if he got the question wrong, he was to jolt the guy with electricity in ever stronger doses.  What he didn't know, is that the guy answering the questions would intentionally get them wrong and then react to the jolt even though he was not being zapped.

The man administering the questions, jolted the man to fatal levels and even did so after the man stopped responding completely at the insistence of the scientist.

People can be pressured into doing some pretty awful things that they would NEVER do on their own.

In any case, the Holocaust was one of the greatest tragedies in human history, and I don't put it past any person that given the right situation and the right conditions, they wouldn't do it themselves.

[Middle-aged Europe]

But there were a lot of very specific things that went on that led to the Holocaust, and sociologists and psychologists have done experiments and studies that prove groupthink.  I forget who performed the experiments or what they're called.. but a man was told to administer some questions to a guy that he could not see, and if he got the question wrong, he was to jolt the guy with electricity in ever stronger doses.  What he didn't know, is that the guy answering the questions would intentionally get them wrong and then react to the jolt even though he was not being zapped.

The man administering the questions, jolted the man to fatal levels and even did so after the man stopped responding completely at the insistence of the scientist.

I think that was the so-called "Milgram experiment", conducted by Yale University in the early 60ies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

What it basically proved was that human beings are capable of committing (or tolerating) acts which they would normally consider immoral/unjust, provided those acts are carried out on orders given by an authority they consider as legitimate.

This human characteristic makes any dictatorship, genocide or crime against humanity possible.

Of course, certain cultural traditions existing in a society can make it easier for the powers that be to exploit this characteristic. In the case of Nazi Germany, such traditions were abundant.

[Gustaf]

The British and French governments were mainly responsible for giving Germany its terrible condition in the 1920s and early 30s.  The NSDAP merely played on the German's anger about the Treaty of Versailles and brainwashed them to support the nazis.  The NSDAP is mainly to blame for the Holocaust.  Prescott Bush, Britain, France, and many others share small parts of the blame. 

GERMANY DID NOT START THE 1ST WORLD WAR!  It, like every other European nation in the war, was entangled in an alliance, which did cause the war.  France and the UK are just as much to blame for that war as Germany.

The MAIN responsibility for WWI must fall on Austria-Hungary, who really pushed for the war. But being a more traditional European war, no country seriously tried to avoid it.