Many people from both sides realized this but the German leadership sadly was of a more conservative mindset.
I was surprised to learn from Zweig's first-hand account how much Orwell's MiniTru was based on western behaviour during the Great War.
https://ia801609.us.archive.org/21/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.1...
p.182 "German professors declared that Dante had been Germanic, the French that Beethoven had been a Belgian, intellectual culture was requisitioned without scruple from the enemy countries like grain and ore."
[1] Among which: having remembered the iron fist but having dropped the velvet glove: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropping_the_Pilot#/media/File...
铁拳软包?