Dad never said much about the war when he came back.
Funnily enough, fighter pilots did talk about it in my experience. Bomber crew less so. Couldn't get Burma vets to say much.
I knew someone who fought in North Africa then all the way up through Italy. I took the trouble to ask him. He didn't say much apart from commenting on the poles. He hated them but he was in the SS.
He told me that they returned to Germany expecting to be defeated soldiers, defeated heroes but they were shipped on a tour of Dachau to show them what they were responsible for. He complained that it had nothing to do with him at the time. He and his comrades were fighting men. "Didn't always act honourably perhaps but then who did?" He was bitter about it and in denial all his life.
Where I was brought up, German POWs were allowed to work on farms. One of them married a local girl. He was depth charged. He hated gulls. Said they took out the eyes of survivors.