did they? It is hard to argue about that, since what you describe is a situation where you have to face the lesser of two evils.
In fact, if the Nazis-Party would have operated in Russia the same way they did in France for example the situation might have been very different, because they had strict orders to not cause to much collateral damage and deal with the french population in a rather gentle way, relatively speaking of course, the Germans didn't hesitate to fight any resistance or to take what ever they wanted if they saw a need for it, but they didn't applied the total war doctrine on France in the 1940s nor the idea to destroy French as population.
The east european states and even inside of Russia the population had a somewhat euphoric feeling about the German victories at least in the first months of the war particularly since they literally steam rolled over the defences of the Soviet army. Of course this was not true for every region, but there are a lot of situations where people burned their communistic books they got from their party. And there have been even Soviet Generals which wanted to fight Stalin.
The people realized rather fast though that the Germans, their leadership have been as bad if not even worse compared to Stalin. Neither Hitler nor Stalin had a problem with looting nations like the Ukraine to feed their armies and accepting the death of millions.
The Soviet army made a lot of transformations between 1939 and 44/45 where they have literally rebuild their whole military a couple of times. That alone is quite a feat. I am not sure if any other nation, including Germany or the US could have really achieved that if they had to face the same situation. Of course they would not have managed this without the aid by the British and US industry which supported the Soviet forces with military equipment and most importantly logistics, like locomotives, trucks, jeeps and radio communication even by the standards of 1944 a radio was only present in maybe every second Soviet tank and many Soviet tanks had radios manufactured in US factories.
In the end the difference between Soviet and German troops was not really that huge anyway. The closer the war was to its end German soldiers had to face a lot of pressure and reprisals just like the Soviets that have been constantly pushed by Stalin and his commanders to rush forward getting their hands on Berlin wasting men in many battles that could have been avoided eventually by a more careful planing. Soviet losses have been very high even in the near end of WW2.
I have a high respect for the Soviet Soldier, the normal rifleman on the front line. I cant or don't want to imagine the terror they had to endure and after the war most of the vets got a kick by the communistic regime if you didn't had the luck to be one of the popular veterans who got several medals. The effects of the war on the Soviet Union have been unbelievable. A lot of the Nation was in ruins, many Soldiers crippled mentally and physically, probably a lot more then others because they had to fight the terror of the front line and the pressure in the back by their commanders which in turn had to deal with the very often unrealistic demands by Stalin and the high command. And it has been even worse for those which have been POWs in German camps. Most of them have been labeled as cowards if not outright as traitors. Yet the streets have been cleaned by the communistic party they simply didn't liked the picture of vets roaming the cities. It was as well forbidden for soldiers to keep a diary or writing letters. It has a reason why there are only very few photos and movies made by the Soviets. No one wanted to see the Soviet army in engagements where they had to retreat or fighting for their lives in pockets. Well not to mention there simply have not been always enough people to make pictures, every man was needed either in the factories or on the front line.
