Germany is often portrayed as a villain even today. I'm a Pole and therefore I tend to hear populisms like these.

It might be easier to debunk some of the claims you mentioned because the questions are all very complex. Maybe you could list some

There is a lot of ground to cover here, so I would suggest you check out the Nazi Germany section of the FAQ as a good place to start.

I would just say one thing in regards to your last question about why Germany is wealthy. This has more to do with pre WWI German state building and post WWII reconstruction than the wars themselves.

Before the wars, Germany industrialized fairly rapidly--slower than Great Britain, but I digress--and it became the largest European economy by 1900. Reasons for this include having a bounty of natural resources and a large, highly skilled population, both of which continue to exist today btw. There were other reasons too, like an imperial desire to compete with other European states at the time, but the point is that Germany has had the preconditions for becoming wealthy for a long time and those circumstances are not a result of the world wars. Germany's economic capacity certainly helps to explain why it's military power was so great in both wars for sure, but the wars didn't produce Germany's economic might.

Why is Germany wealthy today? Well...After WWII, Germany was split into East and West Germany. West Germany was occupied by the United States, France, and Britain and was eventually turned into a capitalist democracy. East Germany was occupied by the Soviet Union and became a communist regime. Within a decade of this arrangement, it was clear that West Germany had become economically viable while its Eastern counterpart had not. Many East Germans attempted to escape to the West through Berlin, which had also been split into zones due to its location in the East. This led to the building of the Berlin Wall.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, East Germany also began to collapse. In 1990, the two reunified and essentially brought East Germany under the West German system of government.

Long story short, the right preconditions as previously stated under the current capitalist system in Germany--which was basically built by the United States, Great Britain, and France during the occupation--has led it to again become an economic powerhouse.

Sorry if that's not enough detail, but I hope this helps!

This response is based on having read various books and articles on the subject, but I'm bound to get things wrong so please correct where necessary. Also, it is merely my understanding of events as they relate to your questions, and is as partial as anyone else's.

1. Firstly, 'villain' isn't necessarily a helpful term. It might be better to talk of aggression. Germany was certainly the aggressor in WWII and must take the bulk of the blame for the war. In this sense they could be cast as 'the villain'. WWI is more complicated. There was a complex system of alliances established in the 19th and early 20th centuries which virtually guaranteed a European-wide war sooner or later. The logic of deterrence prescribed that the build up of arms and armed forces was the best form of defence. You could view the naval arms race between Britain and Germany in the 1900s and 1910s in this light. Further, following Clausewitz's famous dictum, war is diplomacy by other means. War was a vital tool of the state at this time. Hence Bismarck's strategy to unify Germany was to engineer wars with Austria-Hungary (the 'Seven Weeks War', in order to create the northern federated states) and with France (to bring the southern states into the fold and establish a unified German Reich in 1871). So with the complex tangle of alliances, the build up of European armed forces, and the common recourse to war-making to achieve a state's aims, WWI was a question of when, not if. When war did break out, it was Austria-Hungary who started it by declaring war on Serbia following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by the Serbian organisation, The Black Hand. Germany was drawn into the war as a condition of its membership in the Triple Alliance with Austria-Hungary and Italy. Although it did nothing to prevent the outbreak of war and probably in fact spurred it on, it was not the direct aggressor. Most European states were subsequently drawn into the war as a result of their own alliances and guarantees of sovereignty etc. I would probably apportion blame collectively rather than single out any one state - the conditions of European statecraft produced the war, not the misdeeds of a sole aggressor.

2. There is a truly enormous historical literature that deals with this question, and it is very difficult to answer adequately in just a few words. Although you don't want to read lots of thick books, I highly recommend you read 'The Coming of the Third Reich' by Richard J. Evans. Evans is the preeminent historian on the Third Reich and this book is the best overview I've read on the subject by far. It considers social, cultural, political, economic and military history and is your best starting point in my opinion. Having said that, in broad strokes, I would point to the interaction of a number of factors that help to explain the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party. One is the economic privations many ordinary Germans suffered in the interwar years. Produced in part by the immense reparations dictated by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, and by the hyperinflation of 1924-5, but more significantly by the Great Depression in the early 1930s, the level of poverty and joblessness in interwar Germany was staggering. As reaffirmed by the Global Financial Crisis in 2007, economic crises almost invariably engender the strengthening of parties on the right/far right of the political spectrum. This was not something unique to Germany in 1933 or the result of a German 'special path' (Sonderweg). It is a phenomenon that has occurred at various times and in various places throughout history. The second factor I would mention is the corrosion of German democracy in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The Weimar Republic began to lose credibility and therefore authority in the late 1920s. Especially with the concession to Hitler of his own cabinet in the Parliament by the Chancellor von Papen (who mistakenly thought he could keep Hitler on a short leash, German politics was subjected to increasing violence and miscarriages of justice. The Nazi Party worked fast to eliminate their biggest rivals, the Communists and the Social Democrats, using their massive paramilitary organisation the Brownshirts (SA) to brutally repress dissent and to assassinate or beat into submission key political opponents. Again, this was not a process unique to Germany, and is echoed in the establishment of various other totalitarian regimes throughout history. In my opinion these two factors are the most significant but I would definitely welcome discussion/disagreement.

3. 37% of electoral votes is the largest show of support the Nazis ever received. They only just extended this to a majority by creating a short-lived coalition with a conservative party run by Alfred Hugenburg, who was quickly brought to heel. This 1933 election was only nominally free, since the Nazis had co-opted the police, banned the Communist Party and brutally suppressed the Social Democrats. It is important to remember that Germany was already well on its way to being a one-party state by this stage, which qualifies how we understand the number 37%. Again, read Evans for an excellent explanation of this. The question of how many Germans knew of the atrocities committed by the Nazis is a controversial one. My fairly poor understanding of it is that many Germans were aware that the Nazis were committing atrocities but could do nothing to oppose these without risking their own lives. Further, the extent of the atrocities committed was not known to the vast extent of the populace. Jews being packed on trains bound for concentration and death camps, for instance, was covered up with the story that they were being sent on vacation. The Nazis went to elaborate lengths to try to sustain this myth. Similarly, the horrors visited upon Poles and others by German death squads (Einsatzgruppen) outside Germany were covered up by the regime, and the far reaching propaganda apparatus established by Joseph Goebbels seriously limited the amount of in any way accurate information about the war that ordinary Germans could find. To expand on what I mentioned earlier about resistance (Widerstand - giving some of these terms in German so you can look them up), this was virtually impossible. The Nazification of Germany in the 1930s (Gleichschaltung) ensured that there were no public institutions that existed outside Nazi control. No public spaces existed for expressing grievances or dissent. Organising resistance was an extremely dangerous affair, and it is unsurprising that resistance groups like the White Rose were found out. The one organisation that could have mounted a serious challenge to the Nazis was the army, and indeed there were various high ranking army officials who sought to bring Hitler down (or at least wished to). However, the differences between these men, and their incompatible visions of Germany after Hitler, doomed their efforts. I have written about this before if you are interested in reading more about this, though you are much better off reading the work of actual historians! If we consider the history of everyday life (Alltagsgeschichte), there are many examples of ordinary Germans opposing the regime in what small ways were available to them. In a regime where simply failing to give the Nazi salute was a treasonable offence, things like refusing to cook the prescribed Sunday stew (eintopf) in the relative safety of one's own home constituted small but nonetheless personally significant acts of resistance for many people.

4. Germany was not rich as a result of the world wars, in fact the reparations from WWI and the occupation and quartering of Germany after WWII severely stunted their economic growth. The source of their wealth is to do with their population (I think roughly 70 million people in the early 20th century) and the success with which the country industrialised. Germany became an industrial powerhouse in the latter half of the 19th century. I don't know on what scale resources were appropriated from other countries during the two wars, but any gains made here would have been thoroughly negated by the consequences of losing both wars.

My main source for these comments has been Richard Evans two works, The Coming of The Third Reich, and The Third Reich in Power. Happy/keen to discuss any of these points and accept criticism or correction. Hope this is somewhat helpful to you.

• Why was Germany the main villain during both World Wars?

In WWI, Germany was (and still is to some degree) seen as the villain for a few reasons. For starters, they were the first "great power" to attack another great power, France. Staring down the barrel of potential annihilation by France and Russia if they didn't act first, they went for a giant sucker punch at a time when the only country to provoke them in a serious way was Russia.

Not only did Imperial Germany escalate a regional conflict (Austria-Hungary vs. Serbia, backed politically by Russia) to a pan-European conflict, but their government encouraged the development of the regional conflict in the first place. Also, in the process of sucker-punching France, they tore through Belgium, whose chief offense was being a convenient circumvention of the Maginot Line. This brought Britain into the war on the side of the French, which meant a LOT of English-language propaganda, and also indirectly led to the US joining the war on the side of the entente/allies. German U-boats sinking quasi-neutral American shipping didn't help anything.

Now imagine the amount of fuel these actions give to the war propaganda departments of the allies. The effects of allied propaganda campaigns on public opinion far outlasted the war. Then on top of that, the Germans lost the war, signing the Treaty of Versailles which included a statement of German responsibility for the conflict.

Of course, what really happened is so much more complicated than "Germany bad, allies good". Virtually from the beginning of the conflict, the German leadership's fundamental motivation was survival. They attacked France because they felt they couldn't risk the reverse, and went through Belgium to do it because they felt they couldn't afford not to. Basically every one of those actions was taken out of perceived necessity, if not actual necessity. In reality, responsibility for the war did not fall only to Germany, but also Russia, Serbia and Austria-Hungary. None of the leaders of these countries seemed to appreciate that their actions could lead to such an unprecedented disaster.

For a good overview of WWI, including some exploration of the internal politics both during and in the immediate aftermath, "A World Undone" by G.J. Meyer is as good as any.

• Why was it Germany where Hitler has risen to power, and not any other country? Nationalism wasn't rare in those days but it was Germany where it turned into hardcore version called Nazism. Why?

Why does any political ideology or political leader gain power at all? Because the message resonates with influential people, and/or with enough people to be influential together. National socialism had great appeal in a struggling country of otherwise industrious people whose national identity was unified by all-consuming conflict, and who felt that they had been taken advantage of by the allies, their politicians, and any number of other entities. Germany, in practical terms the only nation of the Central Powers to survive the war, was the only country where these specific sentiments were strong enough to support a healthy political party based around them. There's also the omnipresent element of chance. A lot of stars aligned to provide Hitler and the Nazi Party with the opportunity to seize power, ranging from things like dysfunctional political opposition to Paul von Hindenburg's advanced age.

• Is Germany (with it's companies) rich because of World Wars? How helpful was wealth stolen from occupied countries? Or have Germans paid for it all? After all there are big companies that took part in Holocaust or Reich's war machine which function even today.

No, not in the sense you're suggesting. The German economy of 1944 and most of the companies that operated within it bear little resemblance to the German economy and companies of today, regardless of name or logo. The firms most associated with German military equipment and services, in my estimation, would be the following: IG Farben, Siemens, Krupp, AEG, Thyssen, Daimler-Benz, Junkers, Deutsche Bank, Opel, Deutsche Reichsbank (different from Deutsche Bank), Heinkel, [Volkswagen] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group), [Rheinmetall] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheinmetall)-Borsig, [Walther] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Walther_GMBH), BMW, Messerschmitt, MAN, Porsche, Auto Union (present-day Audi), Blohm & Voss, [Mauser] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauser), and Henschel & Son. I'm sure there are others as well, though many of those would be subsidiaries of these. Siemens, Krupp, AEG, the progenitor companies of Daimler-Benz, Opel, Rheinmetall, Mauser, Walther and the pre-merger companies that formed IG Farben all were giants of their respective disciplines even before the first world war. Mauser had already been in business for over a century when Franz Ferdinand was shot. Krupp, for three centuries. Clearly the economic wealth of Germany has deeper roots than the world wars or national socialism.

Virtually all of the companies mentioned thus far in this post, especially after 1943, were entirely consumed by wartime production requirements and dedicated little to nothing towards the civilian economy. They became a part of the German war machine and generally were destroyed along with it. IG Farben, once the largest European company, was broken up and eventually liquidated. Krupp essentially ceased to exist until 1951 and had to be rebuilt as a completely different company, no longer producing armaments. Thyssen too was broken up and liquidated, though it eventually reconglomerated and then merged with Krupp in the late 90s. Daimler-Benz, Messerschmitt, Heinkel, and BMW all attempted to translate towards automobile production with widely varying degrees of success. Heinkel didn't last long, and Messerschmitt went through a few mergers (including one with Junkers) and was eventually absorbed into one of Daimler-Benz's aerospace spin-offs, which then in turn joined with other French and Italian companies to form EADS. Nazi-era Porsche and post-war Porsche are practically different companies, with the former having been built entirely around the multi-faceted engineering talents of Ferdinand Porsche, and the latter built around the goal of producing sports cars. Post-war the company was immediately seized from Ferdinand Porsche and put in the hands of his son, who immediately began making cars and nothing else.

You probably get the picture. The simple answer is that the post-war success of Germany's economy has occurred in spite of WWII and national socialism, not because of it. The same cultural and environmental elements of German society that fueled their success prior to the world wars remained powerful after them. Firstly, they've been the most populous country in Europe for well over 100 years. Secondly, German social values emphasize the single most important personality trait in career success - conscientiousness. They also seem to suppress neuroticism, agreeableness, and extraversion, which are negatively related to overall workplace performance, proactivity, and proficiency, respectively. This is likely a result of the protestant reformation, which created a social structure that encouraged literacy/education, reasoning, frugality, industriousness, discipline, and constantly reinforced the importance of an individual's responsibility for themselves and for their community. These same traits are prominent among other traditionally Protestant societies in Europe as well as the Pennsylvania Dutch in the US, which lends support to the thesis that many of the values emphasized in Protestant theology contribute to these personality traits (and thus overall career success). For the record, I'm not a Protestant or even a Christian, I'm simply reiterating a cultural trend that has been observed by experts in numerous fields. These traits aren't unique to Protestants either. Thirdly, Germany had an abundance of coal, iron ore, and other natural resources going into the industrial age, which enabled thorough industrialization at a relatively early date - effectively a head start on many of its present and future neighbors.

My answer is yes, Germans have largely earned their powerful economy. Usable wealth stolen from occupied countries came mostly in the form of slave labor, economic resources, and natural resources, which are only useful while you have access to them. That access obviously disappeared in 1945. I don't think anybody knows exactly how much wealth the Nazis hoarded in the form of precious metals, but the US found well over 550 million 1945 USD worth of gold and silver towards the end of the war which was subsequently disbursed to many Nazi-occupied countries by the Tripartite Commission for the Restitution of Monetary Gold.