ultimately, the people supported a dictator who said he wanted to kill the Jews.
I don't think Hitler's public rhetoric was "kill all the Jews." It was anti-semetic, for sure, but the Holocaust was a gradual escalation. First they stripped Jews of citizenship, then deported them, then rounded them up in ghettos, then shot them, then concentration camps, then death camps - and many historians argue this escalation was due to the bureaucracy and not Hitler's direct order. Doesn't negate his responsibility, but shows (as always) that history is more complex than it seems. This is the functionalist argument for the Holocaust.
Like the South in the Civil War, the soldiers, even if they were fighting for their home, were also fighting for some of the vilest people imaginable. The two are intertwined.
The Wehrmacht didn't commit the Holocaust, it was the Schutzstaffel and other members of the NSDAP. The Wehrmacht soldiers sure did commit atrocities, but those atrocities were similar to those that soldiers from other countries committed. We can play a Russian soldier in WW2 games, but the Soviets committed horrific atrocities themselves. And yes, even the US/UK committed horrible things (Dresden bombings anyone?)
In the pre-Nazi era, Germans were, as a rule, antisemitic.
As was most of Europe and North America.
something which showed the pressure men were under on the Eastern Front to massacre Russians/communists/Jews
The Wehrmacht and actual combat units weren't ordered to commit massacres. Instead it was the Einszastgruppen units that went around in occupied territory doing the massacres. These were SS, fanatical members of the Nazi party - not soldiers who actually fought. Furthermore this method (the so-called "Holocaust by Bullets") was stopped in favour of ghettos and concentration camps.
I'm unconvinced a German soldier is anymore "evil" than an American or Russian. Most soldiers fought because they had to and because it was for their country, some of them became vile and that is the nature of war, but the Holocaust specifically wasn't committed by the Wehrmacht.