When Jewish leaders expressed their outrage over Formula One commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone over his recent comments on Hitler's economic prowess saying that Hitler "was able to get things done", M V Tronson was likewise horrified.
Later Ecclestone explained, "I did not put Hitler up as a good example, but I simply pointed out that before his terrible crimes, he had acted successfully against unemployment and the economic crisis,"
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25744783-401,00.html
Mark Tronson asks a further question: "As Nazi Germany led by Hitler had many camp followers, was Hitler and his immediate cohorts alone to blame or was there a broader picture?"
The respected theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is an example of someone who was clearly not a camp follower and who paid for it with his life only a few days before Hitler committed suicide.
On a different scale for example, was Dr Horace Greely Hjalmar Schacht, described as the most brilliant economist of his day, who had put his energies into re-establishing the economy of Germany up to 1939 before eventually seeing the error of his ways (politically) and therefore ending up in a concentration camp.
Wikipedia says of Dr. Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht that he was President of the Reichsbank between 1933 and 1939 and one of the primary drivers of Germany's policy of redevelopment, reindustrialization and rearmament and was a fierce critic of his country's post World War I reparation obligations. He died on the 3 June 1970.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjalmar_Schacht
Hitler has been reported as saying that he didn't care how Hjalmar Schacht managed the economy, as long as he 'did what was needed' so that he could fund his militaristic ambitions. At the Nuremberg Trials, it was found that Hjalmar Schacht's goal in restoring Germany's economy was not a criminal offence nor a crime against the peace.
However, in Mark Tronson's view, the perennial question remains, that if the leader is a despot and kills off millions of his own people (we could similarly name other leaders since WWII such a Pol Pot, Idi Amin ...) what responsibility do the camp followers have?
Few historians today would deny Adolf Hitler's cunning by taking political advantage of situations that came his way and even killed his own close comarades on the night of the Long Knives to entrench his political power.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives
But the economy was never his domain, rather in those pre-war years it was Hjalmar Schacht who devised ingenious methodologies for keeping Germany an economic power house.
"Jewish leaders have been right 'to give it to' Bernie Eccelstone 'good and proper' and a whole lot more too. But it seems to me as a Christian, that the righteous people such as Bonhoffer get marginalised by our media (as compared to Hitler) while the camp followers such as Schacht (have you ever heard of him?) somehow escape attention by this same media," M V Tronson stated.
And this question he says has wider implications. "How many say nothing when they see something they consider 'morally wrong' or just plain 'unlawful' going down. A free press in keeping 'the bastards honest' is critical but so too are those who say, 'Yes, this is my business as I too am responsible for my society."