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Nazis were not evil, they were 'social climbers', claims leading German historian

A peculiar German inferiority complex allied to a lust to 'get on' led to the country’s collective moral collapse which allowed the Holocaust of six million Jews to happen, a new book in Germany claims.

Götz Aly, an esteemed historian and social commentator, says their berserk social climbing led the ordinary people, far removed from the extermination camp system, to partake in the plunder of the Jews without troubling their consciences.

His book Why The Germans? Why The Jews? comes at a time when Germany is once more in the crosshairs of critics across the continent as the euro crisis lurches from bad to worse.

It is portrayed as bullying, domineering and inflexible as it tries to impose rigid, German-style rules on nations which do not share its social, political and economic ethics.

Most important Aly gets away from the 'evil Nazi' comfort zone that so many postwar Germans have wallowed in....

Read entire article at Daily Mail (UK)