What have you been reading?
And an open secret pretty much means it wasn't public policy or politics. And higher estimates don't really make sense, why were the allied forces in the dark? Why were the death camps in Poland and not Germany?
People who were living nearby, I will never be convinced they didn't know. But expecting someone in Fankfurt am Main to know about the mass executions happening in small towns in Poland during a time where the country was at war and trying to keep things hush hush so the allied forces don't find out.
> Johnson suggests (in disagreement with his co-author) that it is more likely that about 50% of the German population were aware of the atrocities being committed against the Jewish people and other enemies identified by the Nazi regime.[46]
To me this reads as someone wanting to say a high number to make things sound bad. There are always people who are going to do that. And I think this thread is exactly that. Frame it in the worst possible way to make a point. But the realities are different. To disagree with experts in the field to say they're wrong and it was something different from what they say is arrogance at the highest order. Especially, when basic logic and reasoning say it wasn't politically motivated. It was motivated by a deranged lunatic who hatred of Jews dates all the way back to when he lived in Vienna and whose hatred of Jews got in the way of everything else which is shown by the fact he increased the killings at the end of the war.
The fact, the holocaust as we know it didn't really start until well after political decisions were made. So really, I think it's a fair question to ask was an event that happened well after politics was important a political event or are making it one to fit our narrative? So far the answers have been that it was a clear policy which has been refuted and instead it was an open secret with numbers of people who knew being refuted by the very source that is giving them.