I just found this thread and found it very interesting as I spent 16 years in Germany, first studying then working (I'm Irish). I spent a lot of time researching German history from Bismark to the Weimar Republic in an effort to understand what went wrong with this country.

As Heinrich Heine wrote:
Denk' ich an Deutschland in der Nacht,
Dann bin ich um den Schlaf gebracht.
(Thinking of Germany in the night,
I am robbed of sleep)

Some thoughts that kept me awake at night 20 years ago:

What made the Germans behave as they did during the war? Is there any real connection between today's Germany and that which dragged the continent into the second world war? Can it all happen again? Most Germans would say that too much had changed in Germany and the world to permit a return to the behaviour and views of the thirties. Extreme left-wingers, certain artists, some students, and many foreigners were for a time doubtful.

On the one hand, because of their history and geography, it is impossible to generalize about the Germans.

But I found it difficult to look at a map, or listen to a piece of Wagner's music, or think about the past without the memory of Hitler coming to mind. This mass-murderer stands athwart German history. But there was a time not so long ago when many if not most Germans were willing to regard him as the greatest German, when clergymen, university professors, writers, poets and painters looked up to him in awe as a hero who had come to save Germany, and were willing to accord him veneration and unquestioning obedience.

How was one to account for the capitulation of a country generally considered to be among the most cultivated in Europe to a man who was contemptuous of all the values of civilization?

Of course part of the problem were the economic, psychological, structural and legal defects of the Weimar Republic, which eroded its popular support, and the failure of the political leadership of the time to overcome these problems. Hitler, in contrast, was a political animal who moved fast and ruthlessly to take advantage of the mistakes made by political antagonists.

As regards Anti-semitism, this has been around in Europe since Roman times. But it can be argued that it reached new expression under Martin Luther, who asked: "What shall Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews? Since they live among us and we know about their lying and blasphemy and cursing, we cannot tolerate them." He recommended "setting fire to their synagogues and schools and covering over what will not burn with earth so that no man will ever see a stone or cinder of them again", etc. Kristallnacht (the night in 1938 when Hitler ordered the destruction of the synogogues) was the answer to Luther's prayer.

I found it hard, impossible even, to forget and forgive the murders and destruction of the war, unparalleled in Europe since the dark ages, yet carried out by a well-educated, civilized race, and planned and orchestrated by some of the best educated and disciplined minds in Europe.

I still don't understand it...