"Most" is a difficult term here. As an anecdote, Victor Klemperer addressed this subject at some length in his published diaries. His experience as a relatively protected Jew during the Nazi era informed his later political judgment.

The TL;DR of his work is that humanity in general, and Germans especially, need a strong hand to keep them from resorting to their base instincts. He wanted a secular and modern alternative to either fascism or arch-consertive monarchy that was still in the air in the first few decades of the 20th C.

He considered the East German communist model to be the "lesser evil" compared to foreign dominance, ethnic identity type nationalism/fascism, or anarchy. In fact, he was able to leave East Germany after WW2 and chose to remain there (as a privileged academic, a bit more equal than all the other animals on the farm). OTOH, his critics mostly claim his political ideas were often pretty naive.

It depends somewhat upon the decade (the 1950s in the GDR were very different from the '60s or the '80s), but if I zero in on your word "most"... most East Germans unquestionably saw Nazi Germany as "worse." In fact, Nazi Germany was the excuse by which East German leaders often legitimized their ruthlessness.

Think of East Germany as three groups: a small group of ruthless leaders; a much larger group of committed, idealistic socialists (many of the older generation had personally suffered under Nazi rule); and an even larger, indifferent population just trying to get by.

One of the ways that the socialist idealists "sold" the idea of the German People's Republic to the larger population was that it was a peoples republic--and therefore, a moral answer to the corruptions of the Nazi Regime. We need to work to build the GDR into a paradise in order to erase the shame and correct the injustice of the Nazi past.

Meanwhile, the way the ruthless leadership sold their brutal policies (the Stasi; a one-party state, etc.) to the idealistic socialists was to point out that fascism arises out of capitalism--that the capitalist West (Germany) right next door was a breeding ground for fascism.... and that any division among the left (and any hesitancy or show of weakness) in East Germany would allow fascism to sneak into society again, and perhaps again triumph.

In fact, the Berlin Wall was known in East Germany as the "Anti-Fascist Defense Fortification"... it would keep fascism OUT of East Germany, in part by keeping corrupting capitalism out of East Germany.

Short run: it worked. Socialists went along with ruthless hard-liners in the late '40s and early '50s and even into the '60s, in part because they loathed and feared Nazism so much, they were willing to do whatever it took to prevent its return.

Part of the success of the growing opposition in the '80s was due to the fact that, after decades of sacrifice (including sacrificing moral values), and the Socialist utopia was no nearer... but also, the fear of a returning fascism just wasn't realistic any more. It didn't make sense to arrest enemies of the state because to not do so would lead to Nazism...

Make sense?