[petsfed]

As much heat as Neville gets for his policy of appeasement (deserved or otherwise), I'm not sure Britain was in a position to stop Germany by force anyway. American neutrality is certainly open to criticism, and I think America's performative neutrality is why American companies like IBM ended up in such pivotal roles during the Holocaust.

That said, I am referring specifically to the "this Hitler guy probably isn't so bad" phenomenon that happened inside Germany and Austria. It was a dramatic failure to take a stand against Nazism, by middle class people whose neutrality on the persecution of untermenschen was motivated by a fear of losing their economic position (and the perceived economic opportunity of seizing the persecuted's assets. That is where the "socialism" in national socialism comes from, by the way), which overrode their ability to see all the violence and hatred that the Nazis wore on their sleeves. Its very similar to the neutrality of the Swiss during the same period of time.