© REUTERS / Alex Grimm
While the majority of the country surely bears no nostalgic feelings about such forms of governance, a new study suggests some are not against the idea. A report compiled in cooperation with two major think tanks found that as many as 7.9 percent of Germans believe that dictatorship would serve national interests better than anything else "under certain circumstances." Some 18.6 percent were described as latent supporters of the idea.
Dictatorship basically comes with a cult of personality, and this is where eleven percent of respondents said there should be a leader "who rules Germany with a strong hand for the good of all."
The survey shows slightly a similar ratio in questions targeting other sensitivities of the country's past. Some eight percent said "Nazism had its own positive sides" while slightly more agreed that Hitler could have become "a great statesman" if he did not unleash the Holocaust.
Comment: You'll probably find similar numbers in any nation. As Lobaczewski observes in Political Ponerology, the number of people supporting a totalitarian system usually number in the single-digits to mid-teens, with more tacit support ranging from the teens to low-twenties. Germany seems fairly normal in that regard.