"The Reader" and the Influx of the Other

After viewing the wonderful and moving film The Reader on Friday, I took mental note of a trend among current film: World War II Germany from a different perspective. Films such as Schindler's List and Night and Fog, of course told the story of World War II from the position of those who were most hurt by the war: the Jewish. Their stories should be forever told; however, a somewhat new, at least to my eyes but I intend to rectify that soon, theme within films about Germany and Germans in World War II has emerged: the Other. The Other, in this regard, being those who are often villainized and grouped into an almost trademarked category: the German during World War II. In American film and history, Germans are typically viewed as following Adolf Hitler with an almost blind obedience, unconcerned with what he was doing to their Jewish neighbors and friends. Of course, there were those who tried to hide some families and help, such as the famous Schindler of Spielberg's film among other brave souls, however the majority of Germans are essentially believed to have supported their fuhrer despite the atrocities carried out by his Nazi soldiers.
What I have noticed in recent months, however, is a shift in this kind of mindset in American film; Valkyrie and The Reader in particular portray the Holocaust and Hitler's reign as fuhrer in a different way and reveal the Other side of the story not often told. The Reader tells of a (initially unlikely and somewhat off-putting) affair between a high school student and a much older woman in the late 1950s. After a summer of love and reading, the woman abruptly leaves the town, and the boy, behind. He moves on with life and goes to law school where he and the woman cross paths again as she is tried for being an SS guard at Auschwitz. Suddenly, the viewer is forced to reckon with the fact that this woman, whom they have grown to like and care about, carried out horrible actions against her fellow man, woman and child.
I will not ruin the film for you by giving away anymore spoilers, but the film causes one to reconsider, even for a moment, the tendency to simply group all SS soldiers, Nazis and Germans into one unfeeling mass. This is the easy way, of course, but it is not necessarily the right way or the just way. Could these films be a reflection of the guilt that Americans should and do feel about the war in Iraq? Perhaps they are a defense against those who might try to group us as blind followers as well...