How explain the preparedness of Nazis to participate in the crimes of the Holocaust, and the process by which they arrived at that preparedness? We can trace a direct progression from a motivation to become a Nazi to the perpetration of Nazi crimes and finally to the denial of guilt after the war. We can also discern the process by which they became Nazis: from a rigid militaristic upbringing, through World War I front-line experience, to interwar social and political turmoil and joblessness resulting in widespread despair. If Nazis had one virtue it was loyalty, albeit misplaced.