Hitler's was the classic case of using democracy to destroy democracy. Those persons who supported Hitler may or may not have known in hindsight that they were supporting the destruction of German democracy. Many, perhaps most, didn't know their behavior was leading directly to the extermination of six million Jewish men women and children, three million members of those "mongrel races," and fifty million human lives across the globe. And of course that's the point. People like a Hitler or an Orange don't come to power unless someone puts them their. Hitler never won a popular vote in his entire life but he was able to cause massive destruction across the globe and squander countless resources toward that end. It's all the little Hitlers, all the little brown shirts, that are the problem. By himself Hitler doesn't amount to a spit in the ocean.
Sure. But for a brief period, while he was victorious and essentially unchallenged in Europe, he and his people were very happy indeed with what he had achieved.
Of course, we all know that it went to shit shortly thereafter, but they didn't and couldn't know that.
One of the prerequisites for happiness is a lack of fear or concern about the future - even if that lack of fear or concern is seriously misplaced.
The Germans of early 1941 were secure in the knowledge that their Führer was sufficiently powerful as to defeat any enemy, and keep
real Germans safe from any threat (including internal threats, such as Jewish Germans, who were very definitely not
real Germans).
He had just humiliated their oppressors in France, and finally wiped out the shame and ignominy of their defeat in 1918, and he had turned around their economy after the privations of the Great Depression.
That they were terribly and tragically wrong is pure presentism - they didn't (and couldn't possibly) know that the future held further defeat and even worse ignominy and suffering.
And they didn't
want to know about the suffering of the many oppressed people within Germany. "It can't possibly be
that bad, these people are always complaining, and never seem to be satisfied, and they probably deserve it, after all most of them are criminals. I am a good person, and if they had just been law abiding and decent like I am, they too would be happy and comfortable. Troublemakers and thugs like that deserve whatever they get".
You can still find plenty of boringly middle class people in any prosperous nation today who will say EXACTLY the same things if you confront them with evidence that minorities are being oppressed or abused. It's not happening to them, so it's not happening (or if it is happening, the victims must have brought it upon themselves).
These are the people who voted for Hitler, and Moseley, and Trump.
Fascists mostly aren't jack-booted, violent, or openly cruel; Rather, they are boring, small-minded, and lacking in empathy.
One reason why fascism is resurgent today is that people raised on cartoon villain Nazis in uniforms, strutting across Europe on cinema screens, before being beaten by a plucky All-American leading man*, can't recognise that their polite and church-going middle class neighbour with the neatly mowed yard with a Trump sign in it, is the actual face of fascism (and always was).
*perhaps with a little help from the Brits; Russians? Who are they?
en.m.wikipedia.org
