This might be a weird question to some so I'll clarify: in some earlier conflicts, I've been told, the soldiers and low-ranking officers would develop a sense that the war in question was being fought for the benefit of their "masters", and would look to the men at the other side as doing the same; this would lead them to maintain a "lawful" conduct in combat and occasionally even act gentlemanly by holding ceasefires during holidays, et cetera.
But when I hear about the atrocities committed by pretty much everyone involved in WWII and hear veterans talking about their enemies, I can't help but feel these people actually hated each other very much; which might be natural to us today, but at that time wouldn't be such a given.
Am I correct in my assumptions? Did earlier conflicts really involve less hateful feelings among soldiers or is that just bias? And if WWII was a war fought with hatred, was it because of conflicting ideologies?
Thank you all for any answers you can provide!
edit: spelling
I can speak to it from the Soviet perspective. The USSR utilized propaganda from the early days of the existence of the Soviet Union. Every level of media was directed centrally, and all media destined for popular consumption was directed with the goals of the state in mind. This was very effective as evidenced by the numerous anti-religious campaigns that effectively stamped out all religious observance in the USSR in the 1920s and 30s.
Anti-German, as well as anti-Nazi propaganda took center stage at the start of the Soviet involvement in WW2. There was a step back when Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed, but all bets were off when Barbarossa kicked of in 1941. Print media, film, radio, art, literature - everything you can imagine, was used to vilify Hitler, the Wehrmacht, and anything fascist and Nazi.
Aside from the constant media barrage, there was a political officer responsible for maintaining the moral and political discipline of the soldiers at every level of command. The political commissar was at the level of unit co-commander in 1941. When this hierarchy of command proved to be inefficient for actual combat, the political commissar was abolished, and replaced by the zampolit, who was subordinate to the commanding officer. This officer was responsible for the morale of the unit, the political literacy of the soldiers, and was the funnel of propaganda down to the grunt.
Aside from this constant barrage of media that the average soldier was experiencing, once the tide of war turned against Germany and Soviet troops began to recapture lost territory, they were able to see the atrocities first hand. This was further used by the Soviet authorities to instill a hatred of the enemy.
So, while it's obviously problematic to state definitively that every Soviet Soldier hated Germans, it's not an unfounded conclusion. We can add the Soviet atrocities committed on German soil during and after the war as further evidence of dehumanizing the enemy.