In Dorothy Thompson's essay "Who Goes Nazi" published in the August, 1941, issue of Harpers, she wrote:
"Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.
"Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t-whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi. It’s an amusing game. Try it at the next big party you go to."
Has historical research supported her observation?
Of the eight million party members in 1945, 10% of the German population, only 200 were tried for war crimes. The American estimate was that 1.5 of the eight million Nazis were "hard core." Denazification after the war was initially estimated by Eisenhower to likely take 50 years. Nazi related organizations such as The German Labor Front, Hitler Youth, The National Socialism People's Welfare Organization and League of German Women involved another 45 million Germans that were not party members but actively supported it's programs. By 1952 denazification in West Germany was complete with former SS officers free to enter public/political life again. So it took only 7 years for Nazis and their supporters to become in Dorothy Thompson's words "nice people" again. The West and the Germans deny the concept of "collective guilt " of the German people for WW2.