कई मायनों में नाजीवाद उन बातों के बिल्कुल विपरीत था जिन्हें अधिकांश जर्मन अपनी प्रशंसा का पात्र मानते थे—और निश्चित रूप से जिनका वे सम्मान करते थे। यह शोरगुल से भरा, अनुशासनहीन, अहंकारी था; इसका नेता आधा-पढ़ा लिखा और दिखावा करने वाला विदेशी था। एक दशक तक नेशनल सोशलिस्टों को गुंडों के रूप में देखा गया, जो उस व्यवस्था के पतन का हिस्सा थे जो पहले से ही (अगर कुछ थी तो) ज़रूरत से ज़्यादा अनुशासित समाज था।
In many ways Nazism was antithetical to what the great mass of Germans said they admired - and certainly to what they paid homage. It was noisy, undisciplined, vainglorious; its leader was a half-educated posturing foreigner. For a decade the National Socialists were regarded as hoodlums, as part of the breakdown of what had been, if anything, an excessively ordered society before.
In many ways Nazism was antithetical to what the great mass of Germans said they admired - and certainly to what they paid homage. It was noisy, undisciplined, vainglorious; its leader was a half-educated posturing foreigner. For a decade the National Socialists were regarded as hoodlums, as part of the breakdown of what had been, if anything, an excessively ordered society before.