I had two German grandpas. Both served in the Wehrmacht. We didn't talk about it that much.
One of them was from East Prussia. He never was in the NSDAP but when I asked him he told me that he believed in the regime initially, as did most of his family members and neighbors. After the first World War they lived in constant fear of getting invaded by the Soviet Union and they thought that a re-armed Germany could help them. He told me his view didn't even change when his childhood friend had to flee because his family was Jewish. My grandfather and his father helped him and they remained friends for life though. Even as much as 60 years after the war they would call eachother from time to time and have a chat (Grandpa went to northern Germany and his friend became a Rabbi in Chicago). He changed his mind when Germany lost the war and Eastern Prussia though. He missed his old town for the rest of his life.
In the war he was stationed in Normandy as a mechanic. He always told me it sucked that he couldn't speak French and flirt with the French girls. Other than that it was okay. He was captured by the British pretty early and had a good pow time. According to him he first repaired and drive trucks for the Wehrmacht and after he got captured he did the same thing for the Allies only that the work was less hard.
My other grandfather was the illigemate child of a rich Farmer from northern Germany and a women that wasn't his wife. His father treated him very good and wanted him to become his heir but he was old and died when my grandfather was about 10. My grandfathers step mother (his father's wife) wasn't that kind to him and made him a farm worker the day of his father's funeral. He wasn't allowed to go to school anymore and his step dad was a drinking and beating asshole. It was pretty hard. Back then authorities wouldn't care as long as the children weren't in a concrete danger of dying and they bothered his family more than once. He also ran away from home multiple times to escape from his step parents. He would live in the nearby forrests or the only bigger city in the proximity. He was in the city when the Reichsprogromnacht happend and the synagoge burned down. It shocked him to witness this first hand at young age. He was sceptical of the regime because his stepfather was a NSDAP member and his godfather, the old catholic town priest who had been a friend of his father was an opponent of the regime.
When he grew up further his step father's health deteriorated. He suddenly had no more problems with his parents. They needed his help. He got a truck driving licence and learned how to work on machinery. Also the hard work at young age had made him one of the strongest and fittest guys around and while he was known as a friendly man in the whole neighborhood he proved himself in a fist fight more than once...
In the war he served at the eastern front. He got wounded once. He was captured by the Russians and had to work in Ukrainian swamps before he got send to Siberia. When he came back some years after the war he was reduced to a skeletton and weighted less than 40kg at more than 1,8m size. Nobody believed it was him. His stepmother had sold all his belongings and wouldn't even give him a bed or something to eat. His sweetheart was raped by British soldiers and commited suicide. He slept in the neighbours' stable for some weeks. He gained some weight again and relinquished his farm. He didn't want to have to deal with his step mother ever again. He married My grandmother. She wanted to go to the US. He didn't because he felt he had been away from home for too long already. He became a truck driver and since there were no laws against it he drove up to three 12 hour shifts one after another. He made good money. He bought property and started building an aparment-building there in his leisure time. He only used old stones that he and his collegues had to dispose. He became a father of two, adopted one more, he supported his step mother financially when the farm was run down, got a job as an mechanic and later even as a Trainer mechanic and he stayed fit and strong for his entire life. He had a lot of friends and was well known despite beeing a simple man. He had terrible ptsd related problems from time to time though. He would be ill for one or two days or just real mad. He never harmed anyone, but everybody around him was in fear.
However, I only recently learned smething about how he became a soldier and what he did in war by talking to a man who grew up in the same town and the son of another pow.
One day when he was still at home local Nazi celebrity came to town with a group of young Nazis. They wanted to found a local Nazi group of some kind. My grandfather and some other young men out of the town kjmdly asked them to piss of and it came to a fight. In the end the Nazis told them they would end on the eastern front (als Kanonenfutter). Thus the Wehrmacht "asked" my grandfather to join. In the training he got high scores in fitness but also in shooting tests. He was selected for a special mission and fought on the eastern front as part of a special force, but also got to test new German guns.
I still don't know everything. Someone told me that he was part of Division Brandenburg and got selected by Canaris but he didn't speak anything else but German and was a Wehrmacht soldier so that doesn't exactly fit. Maybe it is true though and they needed a fighting machine or a mechanic? IDK.
However, he was in Western Germany when Germany surrendered. He was captured by Amercians but somehow traded for a German engineer with a group of Russians. Bad luck i guess.
As stated before he had a tough time as a prisoner of war. Most others died (afair 40 of his initial working crew of 1000 survived). However, the surviving pows looked up to him whenever they met. According to one of them everybody suspected that my grandfather was the only one who never crumbled. He didn't even believe my grandmother that my grandfather suffered from ptsd. He told us that my grandfather didn't obey orders more than once dispite facing harsh punishment. He e.g. didn't give his watch to an officer who asked for it but dropped it in front of him and stepped on it while seeing him straight in the eye and smiling. After all he was got used to get beaten since he was a little boy.
Please note: Written on a tablet with German autocorrection in the middle of the neight. I hope I got most mistakes but I get there are plenty left. Sorry.