Does anyone know how intelligent, engaged Germans responded to early Hitler?

[FreepFryer]

7. A relevant excerpt

Some of Herzog's most interesting observations deal with this weird and precarious dividing line between what the Nazi leadership would and would not tolerate. The key, it turns out, was often not the material but the jokester: people suspected of hostility towards the regime were often arrested for making jokes or comments that would have been overlooked if made by the party faithful. "The line between harmless kidding and defamatory jokes full of resentment was blurry," Herzog says, and his pages contain many examples of Third Reich eavesdroppers fastening on innocent banter to complete a sedition case against some citizen. As Herzog explains, "Merely telling a political joke did not put the joke teller's life at risk. The real risk arose when the Nazis were looking for an excuse to remove an unwanted member of the community."