Why just treatment of German civilians? Soviets were assholes to pretty much everybody. Baltic states, Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia, Finland, China, ... - they all enjoyed "friendliness" of Soviets. They also raped women liberated from concentration camps. During liberation of Poland it's estimated they raped ~100,000 women. Talk about saving the victims.
The Soviets were bad, but I am not personally familiar enough with the sources to say whether Soviet atrocities were official policy, ill-disciplined soldiers or both.
The Eastern Front is popular with a certain sort of armchair historian/wargamer/etc. because 'the Germans were the good guys' (or 'there were no good guys') which allows them to distance themselves from the atrocities while still fetishizing the cool tanks and uniforms. Seems spurious to me, but it's not like I would call someone on it and tell them they're a bad person.
