A well-respected German historian has a radical new theory to explain a nagging question:

Why did average Germans so heartily support the Nazis and Third Reich? Hitler, says Goetz
Aly, was a "feel good dictator," a leader who not only made Germans feel important, but also
made sure they were well cared-for by the state.

To do so, he gave them huge tax breaks and introduced social benefits that even today anchor
the society. He also ensured that even in the last days of the war not a single German went
hungry. Despite near-constant warfare, never once during his 12 years in power did Hitler raise
taxes for working class people. He also in great contrast to World War I particularly
pampered soldiers and their families, offering them more than double the salaries and benefits
that American and British families received. As such, most Germans saw Nazism as a "warmhearted" protector, says Aly, author of the new book "Hitlers Peoples State: Robbery, Racial
War and National Socialism" and currently a guest lecturer at the University of Frankfurt. They
were only too happy to overlook the Third Reichs unsavory, murderous side.

Financing such home front "happiness" was not simple and Hitler essentially achieved it by
robbing and murdering others, Aly claims. Jews. Slave laborers. Conquered lands. All offered
tremendous opportunities for plunder, and the Nazis exploited it fully, he says.

I am a believer in studying the extremes. Hitlers Germany (extreme oppression and

persecution), modern Haiti (a complete mess), and Yugoslavia in the 1990s (relapse from
tolerance into murder) have a special hold on my attention in this regard.

And might you think that the German soldiers always followed orders? How about this:

In Auschwitzthere is not one case in the records of an SS man being prosecuted for refusing
to take part in the killings, while there is plenty of material showing that the real discipline
problem in the camp from the point of view of the SS leadership was theft [from arriving
Jews and others]. The ordinary members of the SS thus appear to have agreed with the Nazi
leadership that it was right to kill the Jews, but disagreed with Himmlers policy of not letting
them individually profit from the crime. And the penalties for an SS man caught stealing could
be draconian almost certainly worse than for simply refusing to take an active part in the
killing.