This isn't true. There has been quite a bit of research and when Germans say they didn't know anything they were just making excuses after they lost the war.
I picked this out because it seemed to be quite central to your argument.
This isn't true. There has been quite a bit of research and when Germans say they didn't know anything they were just making excuses after they lost the war.
"not knowing anything" and "not being aware of mactual details of the industrialized killing they were part of" are worlds part.
I have recently listened to an interview with Hannah Arendt, who was against the Nazis from the get go, and frustrated with her friends of whom many just went along to get along. I don't remember the exact year right now, but between 1940 and 1942 she and her partner first heard of the death camps.
Yes, the concentration camps were known, the persecution of Jews was obviously known, and when it wasn't, it was willfully ignored because the antisemitism got lapped right up. The industrialized killing and the scale of it, that was not known, and certainly not to everybody. At least not to Hannah Arendt, and she did pay attention.
[see caveat at end of paragraph] Then there is the fact that the murdering of mentally disabled children 1942 was an internal secret even to the Nazis, not to mention the public. They only dared to do it under the cover of war. [I'll try to find a source for this -- but I remember it from school ages ago, so if I don't find one, you can ignore this paragraph, it's not like my post rests on it. Edit: maybe I misremembered it: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005200 though maybe not completely -- "Conservative estimates suggest that at least 5,000 physically and mentally disabled German children perished as a result of the child "euthanasia" program during the war years." (note "during the war years", it's not like they wouldn't have loved to kill them on day one)]
But hey, I'm all ears. If you can point me to research refuting that I would be very keen to hear it, being German and not into Nazis and all that.
I coincidentally just finished a WWII history the other day, Max Hastings's "Inferno - The World at War - 1939-1945" and though he only briefed discussed the Holocaust in general, it was fairly clear that there was at least some level of awareness that something very sinister was going on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_for_the_Holocaus... also has a bit to say, and a link to some books about the very topic.
What you can say is that Germany was not alone in its treatment of the Jews. The Nazis provided the impetus for the Final Solution but found many willing co-conspirators, not just the Germans.
In fact, many Jews unknowingly got into trains having an Auschwitz concentration camp as destination, thinking that they'll be deported to other countries or that they'll get sent to work camps. A significant proportion of them came forth by themselves, wilful to leave Germany. Many of them also assumed that the destination is some kind of horrible, but survivable re-education/work camp. The propaganda at that time included commercials picturing these camps to the German public as being camps were Jews are used for the betterment of German society, while living in humane conditions, unworthy of the rodents they were considered to be.
This whole thing started and evolved in small steps. Auschwitz happened after they realised that deporting them is not feasible, due to the process taking too long due to other countries being reluctant to open their borders to such a big minority and killing them in bulk by gas was cheaper than using bullets.
If anything the German public probably viewed murders and awkward things happening in plain sight as being acts taken for security reasons against disobeying Jews or against Jews that refuse to leave their society.
Eventually the German public must have been aware of the genocide, but you also have to consider that (1) they could have been too frightened of the monster they created, with problematic individuals being in jeopardy of being classified as Jews or Jew-lovers and (2) as a species, we tend to not recognize our mistakes after enough sacrifices have been made, so it's easier to think that you are part of a revolution for the good of human kind, then it is to think of yourself as a freaking murderer that believed the words of maniacs.
But that wasn't really the question either. Of course the people should have known what was going on, especially by 1943. Even the example of "working the Jews to death" is horrific enough, and what did they really think was happening over on the Eastern Front?
Which was roughly 10 years too late. By 1934, Hitler had all the laws he needed to do whatever. Also consider that the Nazis are a example of hybris and self-destruction, I wouldn't expect anything to follow that pattern again, other than in the third world. Steady does it.
On the other hand, Dr. Bronner, the magic soap guy, emigrated 1929 to the US, changed his name from Heilbronner to Bronner, and urged his parents to follow him (you can find that on his wikipedia page). So at least when it came to Antisemitism, it was possible to sense it. But on the other hand, there were even Jews who fell for Hitler at first, and were sorely disappointed when their home country turned against them.
So while Hitler never fooled some, he did fool many enough for long enough. And compared today, those times were utterly low tech. Even the propaganda was just brutish. Which is why I like to use them as an example, they were still clearly recognizable for what they were; it got so much murkier after that. You could say it metastasized and got debugged.