When is an entire nation guilty of the crimes of its leader?
In the aftermath of World War II, there was considerable discussion about the collective responsibility of the German people for the horrific actions of the Nazis. By the mid-1950s, it was almost impossible to find a German who had ever been pro-Nazi—everyone was against it from the start. Whether it was from shame, fear of association, or cognitive dissonance, they would have you believe there was only ever a handful of Nazis and their supporters in Germany.
The truth hardly needs defending. The great majority of Germans knew what the Nazi Party stood for. The last free election held in pre-war Germany was in November 1932, when the Nazi Party won 33% of the vote. The March 1933 election, when the Nazi Party won 43% of the vote, was held after the Reichstag fire and in the presence of significant political intimidation. Before the last free election, the German people knew Hitler. He was openly anti-Semitic, anti-communist, and anti-democratic. In the 1920s, he compared Jews to germs, stating that diseases cannot be controlled unless you destroy their causes. By 1925, he had argued for the special entitlement of Germans for Lebensraum and the conquest of Slavic lands in Eastern Europe. He attempted a coup and established a paramilitary force.
Almost immediately after he won the March election in 1933, he established the first concentration camp (Dachau) for any social and political undesirables. He was also openly anti-Roma and Sinti, and anti-Catholic.
The tendency towards everything that followed historically was there for all to see. What responsibility did the German people have in 1933 to resist? What about ‘34, ‘35, ‘36, ‘37, … ‘45? In 1945, actual membership of the Nazi party was at its highest, about 10% of the population. When were the German people collectively responsible for their government’s actions?
In many ways, the question is unfair. How can a Bavarian farmer bear the same responsibility as a concentration camp commandant? Those who joined the party, served in the Einsatzgruppen, or otherwise actively participated in Nazi crimes must bear a more direct criminal and moral responsibility. What of the civil servants? What of those who made sure the infamous trains ran on time, delivering millions to their deaths? What is the moral calculus associated with the flow of benefits—direct and indirect—from the persecution of others, such as cheap farm labour from concentration camps, a new home, more job availability, etc.?
The night of 9 November 1938 was Kristallnacht—a pogrom against Jews throughout Germany and Austria. Over 1,400 synagogues were burned, thousands of Jewish businesses were destroyed, Jewish homes were ransacked, and dozens were killed in the streets. The violence was public, visible, and undeniable. Evidence suggests that many Germans—perhaps most—disapproved of the brutality and destruction. But this disapproval remained private and passive. There were no mass protests, no general strikes, no widespread efforts to shelter Jewish neighbours. The gap between private discomfort and public acquiescence reveals something crucial about collective responsibility: moral squeamishness without moral courage is functionally equivalent to complicity. After Kristallnacht, no German could claim ignorance of the regime’s violent intentions. The persecution was no longer bureaucratic or hidden—it happened in city centres with flames visible for miles. If it hadn’t before, Kristallnacht was the moment when passive opposition became morally insufficient, when continued participation in or acceptance of the Nazi system—even by those who privately disapproved—became a choice that enabled everything that followed.
What does resistance look like? Rolling and continuous general strikes, protests, refusal to deliver to, repair, or assist the state apparatus. It is painful; it will result in loss of liberty, loss of property, and, probably, loss of life. Resistance starts with the most, not those with the least. It will fracture families and friendships.
Where Americans have resisted the Trump administration, they have used polite institutional resistance—lawsuits, protests, opinion pieces, and letters to the editor—all of which assume the system can contain someone who fundamentally doesn’t operate within its rules. It’s the equivalent of Germans relying on Weimar constitutional mechanisms to check Hitler after 1933. The Supreme Court has essentially unleashed a criminal President, because by definition, he cannot commit a crime, and he is only enjoined after he has turned a criminal act into a de facto reality. You cannot un-ring the illegal bells he rings.
That’s an outrageous parallel, you say. Donald Trump is no Hitler. And I agree. Donald Trump is a greedy, narcissistic kleptocrat. And in the name of the American people, he has committed international crimes. He has supported genocide. He has ordered the extra-judicial killing of scores of people. He has threatened allies with invasion. He has had people imprisoned without due process. He has had people tortured. He has destroyed the multilateral system. He has put troops on the streets of US cities. He has attempted (it remains to be seen if he succeeds) to subvert the electoral system. He has compelled universities and multi-billion-dollar corporations to bend to his will. He and his family have stolen and extorted billions.
But whether Trump is Hitler is not the question. The question is: when do the American people bear collective responsibility for their leader’s actions? Like the German people in 1933, they knew their leader when they elected him in 2024—and unlike Hitler, they gave him a majority of the votes (not just the Electoral College). When they voted for him, they knew he did not follow the law. They knew he used violence to take what he wanted. They knew he was racist. They knew he pursued his personal interests above any greater good. They knew he was driven by vanity.
Where the German people opposed passively, the American people have resisted institutionally, at a time when institutions do not constrain power. Both groups chose mechanisms of resistance that enabled the regimes they oppose. Both nations bear collective responsibility for their leaders’ actions.
Postscript. Democracies offer their citizens a get-out-of-jail-free card. We elect a new leader, and we are absolved. We held the previous regime accountable and cast them out. Our sins are forgiven. I have always found it a slightly uncomfortable moral maneuver, but I do understand it.
In 2020, Americans could claim they had corrected their mistake. They voted Trump out. Democracy worked. They could also seek comfort in the fact that he failed to win the popular vote. Yes, he won the Electoral College vote, and that is a flaw in our system, but as a people, we rejected him. Then they voted him back in—with full knowledge of what he had done, who he was, and what he would do. The absolution was a lie. The accountability was performance. And the collective responsibility deepens.