Oh dear. I'm only too aware about the verbosity of my posts and but when I keep it short ...
The Cold War.
The opinion makers and leaders in the West ... well, shall we say, didn't like the existence of the USSR. To have a chance against it, they needed extra warm bodies as speed bumps and the fruits of German industry. So by the end of the '40s there was a toning down of the efforts and rhetoric against Nazism and the German military. They were "Sons of bitches but they're our sons of bitches" type of thing, a bit like the various S. American fascists that the US regularly supported. In addition the German military had faced the Soviets and had given the US and British a such hard time, so were sought out as admired professional tutors.
So after a few years not only did the
Heer get a free pass on their criminal activity (only corrected within the last 20 years or so), but the West listened to self serving German generals who brushed aside their failures as "It's all Hitler's fault". (That's another discussion) Quite frankly, they took too much at face value, gullible. Of course after a major war most in the West were sick of it and poorer. So as part of drumming up support for their Cold War stance, the
Heer's reputation had some of the blood and shït washed off, the dents filled in and polished up nicely.
The generals published their memoirs, laying it on thick about how they were defeated by hordes of
untermensch and Hitler. They partly filled a void of serious works on the Eastern Front. People like
Obersturmbannführer Paul Schmidt aka Paul Carell could write great tales of how the valiant Nordic
übermensch defended Western civilisation against the new Mongol hordes. Even I enjoyed his stuff, he could write well, but history ...
. Most people's interest in history would be limited to a few 'popular' authors, rather than better but drier historical analysis, naturally, upmarket comics without the drawings (nothing wrong with that
per se, people have lives to live).
To compound things, Soviet archives were closed and Soviet writers had to toe the party line. So not only was Soviet History dismissed as shallow propaganda (that judgement was partly correct) and not only were some Soviet disasters minimised or overlooked but many of the German disasters were very, very under-appreciated or forgotten. Examples include the ignoring of the size and failure of
Mars and the exaggeration and almost inversion of Prokhorovka which would have shown the Soviets in a worse light. A excellent example to the opposite would be
Bagration, aka Destruction of Army Group Centre, where the Germans were not just out numbered but were totally played by Soviet
maskirovka, outmanoeuvred at operational level and out fought at tactical level. The scale of the German defeat and the skill of the Soviets only seems to have been appreciated from the late '70's, before then few realised how utterly curbstomped the
Herr was.
In summary the ideological demonising and the "dumb Soviet brute" bigotry allied with the lack of solid documented evidence that would have shot down many of the German's exaggerations and whitewashes meant that the Germans got a half price if not a free pass on their many failures.
Sex (a bonus reel).
The marching in step, the drum rolls, the music, the torch lit processions, the phallic standards raised aloft, the whiff of Zyklon B in the air and all those pretty
Hitlerjugend boys and tough sweaty
Bund Deutscher Mädel all help to raise ... eh ... blood pressure. A bit like a Roman Bacchanalia, a Disco or a German Love Parade (Ooops!). That type of theatre has been the basis of ecstatic religions since the dawn of humanity and add in epileptic fits and you can explain most prophets. (The incense, the rising and kneeling, the chanting, the eating of a man's flesh while on your knees before yet another man and the altar boys are still a feature of a religion or two today).
The wish to lose control in orgasmic oblivion is part of humanity's animal nature. You see that in religion, alcohol, drugs and totalitarian societies. Apart from the sexual element there is the deep desire to abandon responsibility and have Mother/Daddy, Adolph, Mao, Donald or who ever, to take charge and don't bother your little head about anything. Simple (and usually wrong) solutions for simple people. Maybe a desire for Nirvana (oblivion) or a return to the womb. This desire to subsume yourself into the mass is rooted in our pack/herd nature as such behaviour allowed us puny tailless monkeys to utterly dominate this planet and ties in with our sex drive.
The Germans had that in spades.
Honza highlighted the artistic aspect and that combined with the gross infantile and sexual messaging of the spectacles gives you the perfect seduction.
Note: My original curt response was intended to provoke thought. While my bonus reel may come across as crude and offensive, it is also intended to make people think. Whether you believe, for example, that religious rituals are divinely sourced or not, my point is to give an idea of how and why they work so well and have lasted so long with humans.