isn't this a reductionist view? the night of the long knives is just the first example I can think of, but I'm pretty sure there were more examples of people _becoming_ undesirable.
But in the Soviet Union the arrests were made to quota to feed the slave labor camps of the gulag - not because of anything the prisoners had actually done (of course, they had to confess).
There were some courageous Germans who chose to defy the Nazis (e.g. the White Rose group http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose) but that to me is quite different.
The overwhelming majority of Germans, if they didn't belong to one of the racial or political categories hated by the Nazis, had nothing to fear unless they chose to defy the state. Most didn't.
I had not heard of a "arrest to quota" design in the USSR, could you point me to a relevant source so I can read about it?
I still disagree on the main point that to be at risk in nazi germany you had to somehow defy the regime.
Your view seem to be that in nazi germany you could simply comply with the ruling ideology and be fine, but as I said above, you can think of the killings and arrests by the thousands of the SA (which had been key to hitler's seize of power) as a glaring counter example.
Moreover, the gestapo mostly run operations based on delations from common citizens (the origin of the "gestapo=big brother" misconception), it's not hard to imagine how mundane they can be. Unless you have a much better view of humanity than I have :)
Whenever shit like that happens, you can be sure that there are people taking advantage of the situation to settle old scores. Wherever the official reason for depriving people of life or liberty, corrupt functionaries will trump up accusations to suit their personal agendas.
