How did German professionals and civil leaders contribute to the persecution of Jews and other groups?

Persecution of Jews and other groups was not solely the result of measures originating with Adolf Hitler and other Nazi zealots. Nazi leaders required the active help or cooperation of professionals working in diverse fields who in many instances were not convinced Nazis. These professionals ranged from civil servants, lawyers, doctors, teachers, police, members of the military, business elites, to church leaders.

To have had a chance of galvanizing opposition, recognition of the dangers of Nazism would have had to occur from the moment of the Nazis’ rise to power and the early stages of Nazi rule, before the Nazis' destruction of democracy and consolidation of near-total power in Germany. This did not happen. There was an overlap of values shared with the Nazis and their antisemitic prejudices, and rights and protections for Jews were never a significant enough priority for those professionals and other civic leaders who might have made a difference.