Very badly. With the defeat of Germany in WWI , then the failed Revolution of 1918-1919, extreme parties emerged, leftists and Communists and the far right; the latter eventually coalesced around Hitler. There was a running battle between the Communists and the Nazis in the streets of Berlin in the 1920's, perhaps made most famous in the Remarque novel Three Comrades. When the Reichstag burned in 1933, Hitler blamed the Communists. The German Communist Party was banned, and many went into concentration camps if they could not leave the country.

You would automatically be enlisted into the "Punishment" battalions

Always the worse duties other than the regular Wehrmacht and expendable.

That said, some of the most stubborn units on the Eastern Front were punishment battalions, ironic since they would be shooting back at their supposed "Internationalist" comrades.

They knew what would happen to them if captured by the Russians.

On the Soviet side, they had the same sort of deal.

And behind them would be NKVD units making sure they wouldn't be able to retreat. Something abut machine guns aimed at their backs.