How did Germany stop being Nazis after the end of WWII? Did everyone just “snap out of it” after Hitler’s death?
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To start with, most people weren’t Nazis, but they did agree with them on certain ideas. They did believe the USSR was a mortal threat, various antisemitic conspiracies (which even Churchill believed) etc., but whether they agreed on the obsession with racial purity and the need for exterminating the Jews was another question. These beliefs predated the Nazis.
Now, did they “snap out of it”? Well, no, but being occupied by Allied powers and with the political leadership coming from an anti Nazi background there wasn’t any room for open sympathy. New generations were taught a more honest history, and there is still great shame felt over WWII. On top of this, there are government agencies dedicated to fighting Nazi like groups which threaten the Constitution. Military members are encouraged to place the Constitution and human rights above their orders, there is a division of the intelligence agency dedicated to fighting extremist groups.
However, in private, a lot of Nazism remained within Germany, after all a lot of Nazis were still around, and they had kids too. Neo Nazi movements had been a problem in East Germany, but instead of doing anything about it the government covered it up. So there was always this undercurrent, but rather than doing anything about it they tried to downplay it.
They’re deeply unpopular, so instead they’ve tried to infiltrate the government. The government for its part had take a blind eye to far right extremists, partly because they didn’t take it seriously but also because members of the far right themselves were influencing decisions, often shifting the focus on murders of non ethnic Germans to an Arab mafia and drug trafficking rather than a hate crime. That all came to a head when a man named Franco A was caught. He had been impersonating a Syrian refugee, and was trying to carry out a terrorist attack while pretending to be one. Franco was a high ranking member of the German military and part of the National Socialist Underground, a Neo Nazi group that has infiltrated the government. Since the. The German government has been more vigilant about far right extremism, but we still don’t know the full extent of the infiltration.
All in all, de nazification had some successes, but the governments have tried their best to ignore the failures.
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