I lived in Germany for few years and I have relatives who are second generation there. I did not get many chances to discuss the topic with the natives (ausländers don’t get to interact with locals the same way furriners do here) and I was mostly passive observer, but my understanding is that public expression of patriotism was discouraged. E.g. the absence of the national flag in display matches the omnipresence of the flag in the U.S.
Germans see the 2006 World Cup as a turning point where they re-asserted their right to display their flag and generally feel proud to be German in public. They consider Waffen-SS to be bad guys and the rest of Wehrmacht to be the true German soldiers (tough, loyal to the country and the people, well-trained, honest, just, restrained in victory, etc. – pretty much the same attributes every other nation applies to its military force).
The zeal with which the German court persecuted John Demjanjuk made me a bit sick. Millions of German soldiers survived the war and continued to live their lives, including hundreds of thousands SS troops and thousands of those who served in concentration camps, but they pick a 22 year old prisoner of ward from Ukraine who was acquitted by Israeli Supreme Court to be the last person tried for WWII atrocities. Clearly because it’s all his fault and now all the bad guys are either dead or in jail.
