Throughout the years 1945 to 1949, 60 percent of West Germans—a population totaling more than 50 million—thought that “Nazism was a good idea, badly applied.” In November 1946, a survey found that 37 percent of Germans in the American zone thought “the extermination of the Jews and Poles and other non-Aryans was necessary for the security of the Germans.” Another survey, from 1952, confirmed that nothing had changed: 37 percent of West Germans believed it was “better” for Germany to have no Jews in its territory. A poll taken a year earlier found that only 5 percent of West Germans felt guilty
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