Following this reasoning we could say that 80% of Germans fought just to protect the people they loved.. in the war that Hitler waged (by himself?).
Remember that nazi propaganda turned most of the Germans to: Jew/Polish/Gipsy (and so on) haters, trying to expand their territory by any means.
I don't believe they were just mere soliders. Judging by how they act in conquered Poland, I'd say 50% hated us and 90% thought that we are inferior.. (I think that Kilrathi were inpired by them in some way too)
I say they must all be judged on an individual basis. We know more than a few American and English soldiers raped French civilians while liberating France, and we know that American soldiers did occasionally kill surrendering Germans (even those who had already been disarmed). But here's the thing - nobody has ever gone ahead and claimed that all American and English soldiers, regardless of what they did during the war, are good men because they fought for the good side. We take it for granted that there were bad apples in there, and we neither try to pretend that they were actually good apples, nor do we deny their existence.
The same goes for the Soviets - we (especially, us, the Polish), are more than willing to acknowledge that everywhere the Soviet army marched, rape and looting followed. We're equally willing to point out the horrible fate of German prisoners of war, who, for the most part, never returned home.
But, we also don't try to whitewash the fact that, you know, they did liberate half of Europe, and they showed an incredible courage, tenacity, and willingness to sacrifice themselves in the process. We accept the good with the bad. Furthermore, we (again, especially us, the Polish, who know the ins and outs of life under a totalitarian government) never, ever equate Soviet soldiers with Soviet leadership. We know the Soviets came both to liberate us and to enslave us - but we're generally willing to acknowledge that the Soviet soldiers did the liberating, while the Soviet leadership took care of the enslaving. I don't think anyone would argue that Soviet soldiers
wanted to occupy and enslave Poland.
So, in those cases, we absolutely refuse to generalise.
But the German soldiers, they are always treated as an exception. There doesn't seem to be anyone out there willing to defend them -
especially the German people have turned their backs upon their fathers and grandfathers. It's open season on them - we hear of German war crimes, and we immediately assume all Germans are responsible. We know most Germans were drafted into the army, but we somehow assume that deep down, they all
wanted to go on a killing spree across half of Europe. That just doesn't work. For every German who was an ideological, convinced Nazi and considered the Polish to be inferior, there's probably about ten who were ordinary people like you and I. Some of those ordinary people, of course, hated the Polish - but they did so for the very ordinary reasons of political and economic rivalry. It didn't help that we gave them additional good reasons to hate them, constantly harassing the
German city of Danzig and refusing to accept the will of its German inhabitants.
And yes, most Germans had the right to feel they were fighting for a good cause - the defence of their homeland. Look at it this way. The Americans went into Vietnam - they invaded. Most Americans felt this was wrong, and strongly protested. But what if, during the course of that war, Vietnam had somehow managed to raise twenty million soldiers and invade America? Would it be morally better for Americans to calmly lie down and endure the Vietnamese occupation, consoling themselves by saying "well, this is all our fault"? Or would it instead be better morally for Americans to fight the war to a victory, in order to protect their loved ones from the Vietnamese? Two wrongs don't make a right - just because your country started the war, does not mean you're not obliged to defend your people when the enemy firebombs your cities. I'm willing to bet that all those hippie protesters of the Vietnam era would, within a week of the Vietnamese invasion, volunteer to fight on the front lines. And this is the case in Germany, too. Hitler had his reasons to start the war, and certainly the ideological Nazis fought the war for Hitler's reasons. But most Germans simply understood that regardless of who started the war, the only way to protect their families was to fight.
face to face preferably 
