There have been different studies on Authoritarian personalities, like F-scale and RWA / LWA. You can actually take the F-scale quiz here. But basically, some people just tend to have personalities that favor authoritarian ideas: submissive to authority figures, acting aggressively in the name of said authorities, dogmatism, punishing non-conventional people and punitive attitudes towards dissenters.

These attitudes are very common, I mean, there have been multiple posts on CMV this week (or even today) that propose we should fix problems with society through punishment.

I think that people with authoritarian personalities are probably going to enjoy living in authoritarian situations. Like, with the Third Reich example: of course a lot of people approved of the chancellor, people with authoritarian personalities are going to approve of their leaders. This is what people with authoritarian personalities want.

Its people who fall out of conventionality, people who aren't "the norm", minorities, etc, who unfairly punished, killed, murdered for just existing in authoritarian regimes.

I also think your example with "too strong a state" is kind of misleading. Lots of people with authoritarian personalities claim to like small government, but in fact, don't. An authoritarian is not going to want someone they consider to be an enemy to have power over them.