Guilty conscience, antisemitism and the personal development of some SS leaders

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.