In 1933, a large number of German nationalists and conservatives, led by Marshal P.V. Hindenburg, supported the entry of the Nazis into the last government of the Weimar Republic. In 1945, large segments of European socialists supported the formation, along with the communists, of governments of unity and reconstruction in Eastern European countries. In both cases, non-radical elements from the left and the right supported the totalitarians early on, believing that they would be loyal to the basic elements of democracy, providing stability and growth to their troubled societies. Any objective analysis of the ideologies then supported by Hitler and Stalin would have shown them otherwise. They paid dearly for their mistake.