Your point of view is naive, and that is not unreasonable, because you don't understand either the "mentality" of the German nation in 1920s & -30s, nor now the government functioned. The modern German state had been created by Bismarck. He was the first Chancellor of the German state, and he created the office to suit his own talents and ambition. Having defeated the Austrians in 1866, and based upon the existing customs union in Germany, he created an empire for a King of Prussia, Wilhelm I, who was happy to be the Prussian King, but did not want to be an Emperor. Wilhelm was conservative, and had been obliged to appoint Bismarck to deal with a recalcitrant Prussian Diet. Wilhelm did not actually like or trust Bismarck, but felt he had no choice in conceding to Bismarck full control of foreign policy in order to secure the control of the Diet that he (Wilhelm) wanted, but could not secure with Bismarck.
After defeating first Denmark, and then Austria, Bismarck's Prussia was the undisputed mistress of central Europe. First the North German Confederation was created from the customs union in 1867, and in 1871, the German Empire. Bismarck wrote his own ticket. There was a Reichstag with fiscal responsibilities and powers, but it was a weak reed, and the office of Chancellor had nearly autocratic executive power--the Reichstag could attempt to control the Chancellor through the purse-strings, but a powerful Chancellor such as Bismarck (and later Hitler) could use political manipuation to control the Reichstag, and virtually rule unchallenged as an autocrat--Wilhelm only reluctantly agreed to Bismarck's governmental innovations and the creation of the Empire, and more and more withdrew from public business other than to act ceremonially. That was fine with Bismarck. The dynamic between the Emperor and the Chancellor was such that a weak Emperor and a strong Chancellor left the Chancellor in charge, but a strong Emperor could appoint a weak Chancellor, and rule himself. This is what happened when Wilhelm was succeeded by his son Frederick, who died of cancer within three months--and he was succeeded by his son Wilhelm II, who soon got rid of Bismarck, because he didn't intend to be dictated to by the Chancellor. He replaced him with Bettmann-Hollweg, a weak and pliable man who basically simply executed Wilhelm's rather dull-witted and shallow policies. Wilhelm II thought of himself as a great statesman, but he actually simply enjoyed the power of the German Empire, and the stability of Europe bequeathed him by Bismarck.
Dropping the Pilot. The rest of Europe saw the foolishness of Wilhelm's decision, even if he were not himself capable of realizing what he was giving up.
The loss of the Great War meant that Wilhelm went into exile, and the German nation clawed its way out of chaos into the Weimar Republic. In 1918, von Ludendorff, the German Chief of Staff, had launched three major attacks to break the Allied line, and the stalemate in the West before the full force of the Americans could be felt. It failed. In the autumn of 1918, the Allies were able to shorten their lines with a million Americans in France, and using the Canadians and Australians as shock troops in the Anglo-Belgian sector, and depending upon the Americans to be the "hinge" upon which the gate swung, they intended to roll up the German lines in a reverse of the advance the Germans had made in 1914.
But the Americans, whom the French and English had not expected to perform well, raced through German lines much faster than anyone expected. The Supreme Allied Commander, Ferdinand Foch, was a plain-spoken man, who approved both simple and effective plans, and personal initiative at the lowest levels. English divisions were made up of two brigades; German and French divisions were made up of three regiments. The Americans arrived with "super divisions"--each consisting of two brigades, and each brigade of three regiments. American divisions were twice as large as European divisions at full strength--and the Americans divisions were at full strength while no European divison any longer were at full strength. The American ripped through the German lines to Sedan, and threatened to cut them off completely from Germany, while the Anglo-Belgians, with the Canadians and Australians leading, were poised to crush them as a hammer against the American anvil.
Ludendorff did not intend to allow the Allies to invade Germany (after all, they didn't want the French to do to Germany what the Germans had done to France), and he was badly alarmed at the rapid pace of the advance of the Americans, the Canadians and the Australians. He asked for an Armistice, and it was granted. Thereafter, the victorious Allies (the British Empire, the Americans, the French, the Italians and the Japanese) convened a Peace Conference at Paris, and in 1919, dictated terms to Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria. The defeated "Central Powers" had no choice but to accept. In Turkey, with the collapse of the Young Turks, the Allies turned the Greeks loose, and eventually this sparked such a violent Turkish reaction, that Mustafa Kemal was able to take power and defy the Allies in arms--he became Attaturk, the Father of the Turks.
But the Germans, Austrians, Hungarians and Bulgarians were in no such position, and the French stood by while Czechs, Serbs and Croatians poured across central Europe attempting to snap up all the land they could before the final reckoning, to create bigger states for themselves. Europe was in chaos, and on the brink of starvation. The Americans, who had been poised to invade Germany, now occupied the Rhineland, and the socialists in the German Navy brought rifles and machine guns into the streets, dragging that nation into the chaos which was everywhere evident east of the Rhine. Joseph Pilsudski united Polish troops who had served in the armies of Germany, Austria and Russia and declared a new Polish state. In Russia, as the Germans pulled out, the Allies sent in French troops and a Czech division, and the "White" Russians fought Trotsky's Red Army. Trotsky eventually marched all the way to Warsaw, and was stopped by Pilsudski heavily reinforced by the French. Europe had disintegrated.
In Paris, the Allies went calmly about creating a new Europe. An American of great intelligence and energy, Herbert Hoover, took charge of relief efforts, and began to feed Europe. A minor member of the English contingent, and academic named John Maynard Keynes, thoguht he was far more intelligent and important than anyone else, and when he irritated Lloyd George to the point that he was sent home, he bitterly condemned the Allied settlement, and predicted economic disaster. (He was basically a talented academic amateur who hadn't the sense to realize his unimporance and work effectively for what he believed made the most economic sense--he was to create problems in economics for the world for many years to come.) Bascially, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Germany were obliged to accept the terms dictated to them. Germans were horrified at the reparations they were obliged to pay, and resented their perception that they were being blamed for the war. All of the treaties included a provision that the defeated powers acknowledge their responsiblity for the war, as a legal formula to justify reparations. The Germans began referring to the treaty as the Versailles
Diktat. Whereas that was not unreasonable, because the Allies did dictate to them, in fact, their reparations were not that onerous, the more so because they did not pay them. The Germans did not pay even 10% of the reparations levied against them, and much of it was paid in kind--they turned over their property to repay the Belgians and the French for the horrible damage they had done, much of simply malicious damage done by the retreating German army. In 1871, the Germans had demanded that the French pay 700,000,000 gold francs in reparations, and the French astounded the world by doing exactly that. But the myth that the German economy had been crippled by reparations (which they didn't pay) became rooted, and the resentful Keynes had published a book predicting economic disaster (which never occured) that only fueled the fires of German resentments and the resentment of those who sympathized.
So two myths were in operation--the "stab in the back" myth which claimed that the Germans had never been defeated in battle (a lie promoted by Ludendorff, whose personal reputation was at stake) and the "Versailles Diktat" myth, that Germany had been ruined economically by the vengeful French. The French maintained quite a large army for quite a long time. The troops of the British Empire--English, Canadian and Australian primarily--were mustered out fairly quickly. The Americans eventually brought three million troops to Europe, and many remained in Germany through 1919, but by 1920, the Americans had demobilized as well.
Throughout the 1920s, European nations (other than Germany) and the United States demanded an end to war. Many people had looked to Woodrow Wilson and the Americans to "save" Europe, and felt disillusioned and betrayed because it didn't happen, and because the United States would not join the League of Nations. (Wilson could have gotten the treaty ratified in the Senate, but he tried to play hardball in a stupid and politically naive manner, and lost the Republican support he could have had to pass the treaty). Throughout Europe, people said never again, and armies were reduced, armaments banned and restricted--and the Germans were prohibited from creating a new army, and especially an air force. (The Imperial German Air Force was the one arm of German militarism which hadn't been truly defeated in the war--and Herman Goering was a star of that air force, and the hand-picked successor to the Baron Manfred von Richtoffen.)
*****************************************
Adolf Hitler was a profoundly stupid man in so many ways--militarily, he was a disaster for Germany, and the best friend the Allies were to have in the coming war. But he had one genius, and that was gutter politics. Hitler did not invent the "stab in the back" and the "Versailles Diktat" myths, but he exploited them brilliantly. He did not invent the soup kitchens and public works programs which made the National Socialist so popular--they were copied from the "Brown Shirts," the Sturm Abteilung, or SA, and from the policies of the socialist newspaper editor in Italy, Benito Mussolini. Once again, Hitler exploited and profited from the ideas of others. The National Socialist ideology brilliantly exploited mysticism and symbolism, and Hitler profited from brilliant lieutenants such as Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich. Hermann Goering had succeeded to the command of Richtoffen's "Flying Circus" after Richtoffen was killed, so Hitler was able to get a genuine "war hero" on board who was not politically tainted by the chaos of 1918-20. Goering was a complete toady, and just the sort of man Hitler wanted in a visible public position. Ludendorff proved to be an unreliable and rather nutty figure, and Hitler ditched him early on.
The Weimar Republic had actually proven to be an effective government. Back in the days when Bismarck was Chancellor, he had carefully co-opted the power of the German socialists (the largest, richest and best organized socialist party in Europe before the Great War) by a careful program of social relief and labor legislation. The Weimar Republic carefully built on that base, but the National Socialist got the public credit for the improving economy because of their visible soup kitchens and public works programs. Most of the effective politicians of the Weimar Republic had been tainted in the public mind as traitors responsible for the "stab in the back," and a cowardly acquiescence in the "Versailles Diktat." In 1919, with the British troops going home, French and Italian troops spread thin throughout central Europe, and a Bolshevik threat in the East, a military force had been assembled from German troops in the Baltic, the "Freikorps." This only helped to convince the German people of their military prowess--although in fact, German officers in the Freikorps became little better than robber barons who were swept aside by the Red Army and Trotsky, who was only stopped by Pilsudski and the Poles, who actually relied on French bayonets to support them.
The nation was ripe for the discrediting of "politicians" (and the National Socialists were careful to keep themselves identified as reforming outsiders) and a return to militarism. The socialists in Germany had destroyed themselves--the admirers of the Bolsehviks had freely declared themselves communists, and slandered any socialists who did not join them as "social fascists." In 1932, the National Socialist won 230 seats in the Reichstag, making them the largest single party in that body. No government could succeed without National Socialist support, and Hitler was ready for his next gutter political move, and the crucial one--he was going to join the government, torpedo it, and take over. The place of the Emperor had been taken by a President--and that was Paul von Hindenburg, and superannuated Prussian officer who had come out of retirement in 1914--by 1932, he was long past his intellectual prime, which had never been that prime as it was. He consciously moved the goverment to the right, and the government resigned. That was when the National Socialists won their crucial election. A new government was formed with a right-wing and aristiocratic air, under Papen. Papen had deserted his Center Party to become Chancellor, and he offered Hitler the post of Vice-Chancellor, which Hitler rejected. Hitler then wooed the Center Party, who wanted to "get" the renegade Papen. Papen's government lost a vote of no confidence, and although the Nazis did not get as many seats as previously, they remained the largest single party. Hindenberg tried to appoint a general as Chancellor to form a new government, but Papen, resentful, worked to bring down that government. The Nazis had nearly been bankrupted by the campaigning, but their financial supporters in the business community put pressure on Hidenberg, and much to Hindenberg's distaste, he was eventually obliged to offer the post of Chancellor to Hitler. The former large and powerful right wing party, the German National Peoples Party, was abanedoned by the industrialist who now financed the National Socialists, and being apparently too dense to see the handwriting on the wall, they agreed to a coalition with Hitler. Papen now became the Vice-Chancellor, and he and the German National Peoples Party fatally underestimated Hitler, thinking they could use him as a figurehead and govern without him.
Hitler used the Reichstag fire to destroy the communists, and to push through a decree of emergency powers. New elections were held, and the National Socialist then won more than 40% of the vote. The Center Party, the third largest party after the NSDAP (Nazis) and the DNVP (the German National Peoples Party), fatally agreed to an enabling act (the Center Party was basically Catholic, and Hitler made a lot of promises to them on that basis which he never intended to keep; he had long encourage a false belief that he was a devout Christian, if not actually an orthodox member of the Catholic Church). Although not an innovation, it had provisions no such act had ever had suspending constituional provisions, and the government was given four years of legislative power. Hitler was already Chancellor, and that made him the most powerful executive in Europe. Now with the Enabling Act, he had four years to legislate himself into unchallenged and unchallengable power. He didn't let the grass grow under his feet. The Reichstag ceased to be anything more than a rubber stamp for the National Socialist government, which dropped the DNVP and the Catholics like hot rocks.
*********************************************
The Germans had long believed that their military was invincible and had been sold out--Hitler encouraged that belief and began to re-arm openly in contravention of the Versailles Treaty. The Germans had long believed that their economy had been destroyed by the "Versailles Diktat," and that they had only been saved by the National Socialists (mistrusting the politicians who had "sold them out," and "stabbed the Army in the back," they ignored the yoeman's work the Weimar Republic had done to return economic stability and prosperity to the nation). There was no reason for Germans in the 1930s to mistrust the National Socialists, and much reason (all of it false and propagandistic) to see them and Hitler as their salvation. The careful manipulation of the political instablity of the nation enabled the Nazis to convince the Germans that they needed the strong central authoritarian rule of Hitler.
German, as was the case with most of what we now call the industrialized world, had largely a rural or small town population. Hitler and the Nazis were despied in Berlin, and ridiculed, but the "man in the street" in the rest of Germany admired the Nazis, and were only too willing to buy into first the allegation of a communist threat, and then an allegation of traitorous Jews. It was easy to transfer the animus inspired by the "stab in the back" and "Versailles Diktat" myths to the Jews, and no one much cared in the early days if Jews, homosexuals and critics of the government were rounded up and shipped off to the camps. By the time the camps were converted into death camps in 1942, it was far too late for anyone to protest or challenge a government which had had a decade of unchallenged autocratic power. An atmosphere of fear reigned, and people who had protested after 1933 had disappeared. The Germans were no worse than anyone else in the world--but two powerful political myths and the uniquely powerful office of the German Chancellor combined to create a situation which Otto von Bismarck certainly could not have foreseen in 1871.
