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

[defacto7]

13. I read it in the book On Tyrany...

Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. Page 15 and 16 is the quote from a leading Jewish newspaper in 1933.

"We do not subscribe to the view that Mr. Hitler and his friends, now finally in possession of the power they have so long desired, will implement the proposals circulating in [Nazi newspapers]; they will not suddenly deprive German Jews of their constitutional rights, nor enclose them in ghettos, nor subject them to the jealous and murderous impulses of the mob. They cannot do this because a number of crucial factors hold powers in check…and they clearly do not want to go down that road. When one acts as a European power, the whole atmosphere tends towards ethical reflection upon one’s better self and away from revisiting one’s earlier oppositional posture."