So yeah… Hitler’s (supposed) “popularity” should be viewed with the same suspicion as Putin’s.

Fair enough, though I could also see Hitlers public approval rating being real for a few reasons.

1. Unlike Putin & Trump, Hitler seemed to give frequent economic concessions to industrial workers to prevent dissent.
2. Their economy did improve (due to imperialist conquest and ransacking obv, which most of the population didn’t seem bothered about)
3. His supporters seemed to suffer the same cognitive dissonance cult-like worship that MAGA currently suffers under (despite their economic conditions getting worse in the US), but perhaps on a much wider scale.

I’m not well read enough on Greek or Italian fascism to know if Mussolini or Metaxas were worse at quelling dissent or keeping the non-targeted groups ‘happy’, but from what I recall of Mussolini, his conquests were far less successful than Hitler’s, which may have limited his economic ability to keep people pacified in the same way.