I recall reading somewhere that you could divide German historiography into two periods; a period before some time in the 60s/70s, and a period after (I'm not all that familiar, so the details escape me).
Basically, before the 1960s, the combination of denazification failing to fully root out Nazism and the sheer degree to which Nazism had penetrated all sectors of German society, combined with the present of an implacable enemy just over the border, meant that for several decades, the crimes of the Third Reich weren't really given the same treatment they were after the 60s. It was, in one anecdote I recall reading, to such a point that for decades afterward, maps of Germany in train stations and such displayed German with her 1937 borders (while it was not until Brandt's Ostpolitik that the Oder-Neisse line was really accepted in any form, the year 1937, as opposed to, say, 1932, still contained some of the Nazis earliest annexations, and was indicative of the degree to which some Nazi actions were still accepted). While German historiography would recognize the Holocaust, and characterize it as wrong, and also describe WWII as an unlawful war of aggression, there also was an element of apologism, especially for the Wehrmacht, through the use of convenient scapegoats such as the SS or the Nazi leadership, most of whom were in the post war era either dead or fled. A major part of this was the dominance of the conservative old order within the German government in the twenty years or so directly after WWII, which found it convenient for its own purposes to not raise this issue, and also because many historians and memoir writers had their own reasons to apologize for certain Nazis or the Wehrmacht.
By contrast, by the 1960s, there was a very significant backlash in Germany, partially against the post-war conservative dominance, partly as a general willingness to face what the Nazis had done, and partly because refusing to recognize the GDR or the Oder-Neisse line was getting a bit farcical at that point. At least in part, the counter-culture movement arriving in Germany tended to cause people to view the war and Nazis through that perspective, there were apparently some societal pressures also, which I've forgotten, at the same time, there were radical changes in the historiography of the entire first half of the twentieth century, of whom one of the most famous historians was Fritz Fischer, which examined not only WWII historiography, but also WWI and German Empire historiography, and not towards a more positive view of the above. You might say that German anti-militarism was only born in the 1960s, thanks to a toppling of the old excuses and apologisms, and were part of a greater trend of rising anti-militarism and counter-conservative reaction.
Of course, this is mostly based on scraps I remember from history class, a book I read somewhere, some wikipedia articles, some posts on this forum, and (not that I will tell you where) a few inferences. If I've made or presented any misconceptions, or gotten anything incorrect or wrong, please inform me.
