It was institutional, John, in the public school system. I went to junior high and high school in New York State, and I can assure you that there was a concerted propaganda effort to make us hate and despise three groups of people:

# 1. Communists
# 2. WWII Germans (but not postwar Germans)
# 3. WWII Japanese (but not postwar Japanese)

It was extreme hate propaganda. The reason I was aware of it as such was that # 1, I was a foreigner living in the USA, which gave me a different perspective on things, and # 2, I've always been an "outsider" anyway. If I see the herd of sheep all going one way, I usually instinctively question it, resist it, and go the other way.

Obviously, I would not have made a very good Nazi, given this basic negative response to conventionally common prejudices in any given society. I always tend to sympathize with the underdogs or the common targets in any given pecking order. I identify with them. Most (or at least a majority of) people tend to identify with the "winners" and the people on top, I've noticed.

Quite aside from school, the hate propaganda I mention was also a common feature of comics, movies, and popular culture, and I was well aware of that too as a kid. The whole thing began to moderate and ease off some in the later 60's.