Actually, if you knew about this, and you knew that speaking out was a death sentence, yep, you'd actually be scared.

We had one or two very brave whistleblowers, but you can be sure that a lot of rank and file were, yeah, scared, because they knew they were culpable and they knew that could get whacked.

I'm not saying this isn't a BS excuse propaganda piece of media, but yeah, I reckon the real fear was there. It's what happens when someone gets in over their heads.