And nobody has been confusing a German soldier with a gun to their back and a Nazi that bounded forward with exuberance. There’s always a difference in an indictment, one is where you have failed to hold your countrymen accountable, and the other where you worked to actively support those acts. Both are worth being ashamed. Both might be sentenced to death. One will be viewed with pity, and the other with disgust. There’s nothing to be scared of in this paradigm unless you are willing to tolerate or perpetrate acts like these.
And nobody has been confusing a German soldier with a gun to their back and a Nazi that bounded forward with exuberance. There’s always a difference in an indictment, one is where you have failed to hold your countrymen accountable, and the other where you worked to actively support those acts. Both are worth being ashamed. Both might be sentenced to death. One will be viewed with pity, and the other with disgust. There’s nothing to be scared of in this paradigm unless you are willing to tolerate or perpetrate acts like these.
You’re forgetting that they still had an ethical alternative to supporting fascism. Just perhaps not a pleasant one.