Does this mean that we should ease up in our judgements of the Germans who lived under the Third Reich. I remember being in taught in school, how bad the Germans were because they wouldn't speak up, when Hitler's regime was waging unjustified wars, and committing ghastly crimes like the Holocaust. And yet, weren't all the mechanisms, that Lou outlines below, in operation, thereby explaining the silence, and indeed the acquiescence of the German people under the Third Reich?
Jim F. --- Don't forget about the capacity for self-deception. My great-granduncle was euthanized in Germany in the 30s (mental illness). The family actually believed the government when they said they were just taking up to a special hospital. And his nephew (my grandfather) was in the Hitler Youth at the time and an ardent Nazi. Serious psychological compartmentalization and denial of reality going on.