The problem is that they just don't know, because most middle/high school classes don't tell you. You hear "Hitler was a big meanie face who tricked everyone into being fascists" or, even worse "Nazis were bad and everyone knew it and all the German soldiers were bad" and people just take that at face value and never think about how illogical that is. The big point I think most people miss is that part of the fears that allowed the Nazis to grab so much power was that Russia-funded communists tried to destabilize the government, tried to set the government buildings on fire, and made their own Red Guard IN Germany, and most Germans didn't want to make their country a puppet state for Russia. I only learned about this in college, and even then my big-brain teacher said "This wouldn't have happened if they just gave the power to the communists".
The problem is that they just don't know, because most middle/high school classes don't tell you. You hear "Hitler was a big meanie face who tricked everyone into being fascists" or, even worse "Nazis were bad and everyone knew it and all the German soldiers were bad" and people just take that at face value and never think about how illogical that is. The big point I think most people miss is that part of the fears that allowed the Nazis to grab so much power was that Russia-funded communists tried to destabilize the government, tried to set the government buildings on fire, and made their own Red Guard IN Germany, and most Germans didn't want to make their country a puppet state for Russia. I only learned about this in college, and even then my big-brain teacher said "This wouldn't have happened if they just gave the power to the communists".
Yea, I never understood why the atrocities of communists and the deaths under the Mao regime never get any criticism.