The Germans have been very good at educating their children about their dark history. My aunt teaches in Germany and she said they freely talk about how bad their past was and they own it. They introduce it in to studies at 10 years old or something. Someone who lives there currently on here may know more.
I also believe Michael Moore did something in one of his last movies that mentioned it. He was talking to German teenagers in it. They talked about how important it was for them to understand every aspect of how that war went down and their countries involvement and atrocities.
My first visit to Germany (Berlin) I was fascinated by how front and centre they are with their history, as you say there is a strong feeling that they own it.
As for Russia, I think its a very different prospect, Germany was a relatively young and liberal nation state in the late 19th and early 20th century, ambitious, then consumed by a maelstrom of nationalism. But, while horrific in its consequences, it was a short span in its history. And of course it was occupied and administered to statehood (in West Germany at least.)
Russia is an old, old country with centuries of tyranny and turmoil embedded in its cultural memory topped off with decades of totalitarian control and then its transition to an integrated world nation has seen it run as a mafia state.
Its also a massive, continent spanning country.
I think a possible outcome may be a fragmentation. If the Putin regime does collapse it may take the soviet era security apparatus with it, which persisted through all of the economic change.
Without the iron grip of an autocratic state and centralised control, you might see a break up with regional administrators (warlords) taking control of large parts of the south and east. You could end up with a loose confederation and potentially Moscow and St Petersburg and western Russia pulling towards Europe and much of the rest of the country coming increasingly under China's orbit.
