So What Is It with German Führer Worship Anyway? -or- The Cycle of '8

I like foreigners, including Europeans, and included in Europeans, Germans.  But sometimes they (foreigners) get these strange enthusiasms.  Germans especially.  

For instance, this one time, they were all hopped up about some Austrian corporal, back in ... oh ... about 1938.  Unfortunately, it didn't turn out too well.  The guy turned out to be a mass murderer.  History's third biggest, I'm told.  So really, not too well at all.  Also destroyed the country.  Yeah, really not good.  

1938

After all that, a generation later the youth were out in street again with a new enthusiasm, for another inscrutable charismatic:  

1968

Unfortunately, this one didn't turn out too well either.  Yep, another mass murderer.  This one was history's second biggest, I understand.  How'd the Germans do it?  They're two for two. It's like they're trying to climb the league tables of misplaced enthusiasms.  At least this time their hero wasn't in their own country, so they didn't have to be his victims.  They figured that much out.  

So now another generation has passed and the warm weather brought another round of inscrutable charismatic hero worship...  

2008

Again, they seem to have learned the 1938 lesson and they're going for a guy who's not in their own country.  (You do have to feel sorry for whatever country's gonna get stuck with him, though.)  

But, what I'm wondering is, how come the more oppressive government a guy promises, the better the Germans like him? Is there some kind of masochism gene in central European DNA? On the socialism chromosome perhaps?  

The Germans seem to be the anti-canary in the coal mine.  When they start hyperventilating, get the hell out of the mineshaft.