I am afraid there are many historical examples in which countries clearly understood they were the attackers. Germans will recognise that Hitler attacked Poland. I am not going to dig into Vikings, Mongols, Huns, Romans and others that were perfectly conscious of being on the offensive.
If Axis won WW2, you would only hear narrative about them defending...same as Americans today don't say "we did war crime by dropping
two A-bombs on civilians" but you hear "we did it to prevent loss of life by both USA soldiers and Japan civilians and soldiers"