That’s more or less what I’ve read.

In the movies it’s portrayed as if Nazis made everything clean, orderly, “civilized”, but the unfavorable people were removed and killed, slave labor was used and so on, and all of it in the atmosphere of “civilization and normalcy”.

It’s probably to communicate the shock, but in fact things were like you describe them.

Nazis would rule in a medieval way, so to say, minus divine right to rule. Random murders (again, without normalcy or formality, just so, and quite brutal sometimes), torture locations in buildings with windows always open amid crowded enough places, where sounds of someone being beaten to death were heard day and night, such stuff.

The other guy is right too, most people learned to perceive this as normal and not everyone was killed for being not loyal enough, just a few.

Like in today’s Russia not every 16 years old schoolgirl gets into prison for 8 months for blowing up a petard in a public place, the number of whose who does is not big enough to imprint in the public that this even happens, but enough to spread non-verbal fear. Similar with posting a random protest text, or saying something about war, etc. That’s called making an example.

OK, Russia’s regime has that innovation of doing these things covertly enough for there to not be open intimidation. Cause open intimidation causes public reaction more than they need. They are more careful.