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Returning to the original post a little, the massacre of the fifty POWs following the Stalag III escape in March 44 was ordered specifically following a meeting between Hitler, Himmler, Goering and Keitel. Up until that point on the western front escaped POWs tended to be returned to their camps. Hitler wanted all 76 escapees to be shot, but Goering talked him down to 50, the rest being returned to various camps. It is important to remember that the executions were carried out by the Gestapo, not by the German Army or the Luftwaffe who controlled Stalag III. Notably the Kommandant of Stalag III was so appalled by the executions, he built a memorial to the fallen which still stands and to which he personally contributed. The executions were primarily carried out as a deterrent to further escapes and to send a message to insurgents within Germany.
My point is, there was a broad spectrum of standards of behaviour between the individual armed forces, some more political than others. The SS, Hitler Youth and Gestapo were of course Nazi organisations, Nazi influence on the Army and Luftwaffe less so, and the Navy comparatively non-Nazified. Indeed Admiral Canaris, head of the German Intelligence service, kept secret files detailing SS atrocities and even, it is believed, met British agents to pass on information. He was executed a couple of weeks before the war ended in the aftermath of the July Plot.
The utterly superlative film Downfall (an essential watch to anyone with the slightest interest in the period) demonstrates the correct way in which the madness of the Nazi world should be depicted. No-one is depicted in black and white, as it was in war films of a generation or so ago, the world simply doesn't run like that. All the players are shown with various degrees of adherence to the Nazi Regime, from the dutiful exasperation of professional doctors to senior army officers, to fanaticists such as Keitel and Goebbels, culminating in the murder of his six children so they did not have to grow up in a Soviet dominated world.
Germans in war films should not be portrayed with the same brush, we've moved beyond that Victor comic stereotyping - most of the non-political combatants were simply doing their duty. I have a personal diary and book of thoughts by a German paratrooper at home who was killed in the immediate aftermath of Normandy. It's full of poems and musings mostly about his home and mother, the war is barely mentioned and there is absolutely no mention of Hitler or his gang of thugs. It makes very tragic and sad reading. His commanding officer unofficially protected soldiers with Jewish ancestry in his regiment and led a memorial service for the fallen British dead at Crete.
