Quote Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger View Post
and that most Germans did not know what was happening.
THAT is not true. Of course they knew about the massive oppression, they saw it every day and participated in it themselves! They might not have know about the industrial killings, but they sure as hell knew about the arrests, the torture, the concentration camps, etc. They knew and saw more than enough to know that their government were murdering, torturing and oppressing innocent people.

To put it another way; they knew about 100.000 of the 6 million jews killed. And that should be way more than any person requires to know that their government is a tyranny.

But they chose not to act. The vast majority, at least. You're vastly underestimating the extreme racism of those days, PJ. The question isn't whether they knew; the question is 'why should they care?'

I saw an interview with a former wehrmacht soldier who participated in some massacre of innocent civilians in Russia. The interviewer asked him why he did it, why he didn't question his superiors, his orders. His response? 'They were only jews...'