William Shirer, the noted radio reporter stationed in Europe during the awful days of World War II, said this a couple of years ago to Bill Moyers:
“What was important and terrible for an outside observer was that the vast majority of people supported Hitler with incredible enthusiasm. Now, why was that? Well, for one thing, he was giving them full employment. He was improving the economics of the place by borrowing a lot of money he never paid back. There’s a certain militarism, in our time, in their blood … the Germans didn’t care about loss of freedom, as long as they had some prosperity.”
Further along in that interview, Shirer said to Moyers:
“As you know, President Reagan put out this idea of history [concerning trip to Bitburg] that only Hitler, one man, was responsible for the evil, and that the poor German people, including the soldiers, were innocent victims. History gets distorted all the time. I guess we all do it, and that will go on. It’s too bad.” (pp. 246, 249)
Like history, theology also gets distorted.