Little Hawk, as usual you mean well but you don't always mean what the rest of us mean.

To say the Germans were fighting for Germany is to overlook that they were fighting for Germany in Poland, they were fighting for Germany in Belgium, Czechoslovakia, in Norway, over England, in France, in Russia. Much as the Japanese were fighting for Japan in Korea, China, Russia.

You have an automatic sympathy for the underdog, no matter how much of a cur he might be.

I just finished a book called "Germania" which concerns itself with the end of the Hitler regime and the brief Doenitz government. As the Americans and English are encountered, Doenitz is trying to surrender under terms that the Germans will immediately become allies of the West and proceed against the common enemy, the Soviets. Their desperation and exhaustian has fed this delusion to the extent that they can't comprehend that the West won't do this.