HaLeivi, that is correct, before the war religious Judaism was not black or white, there were shades of grey.
I forgot the name of the sefer, but it’s available on hebrewbooks.org where it goes through some of the opinions of late 19th and early 20th century rabbonim. And, yes, they range from extreme on one side to the extreme on the other with many smack in the middle. Geography also played a part in how they decided and contrary to what you might read about from Hakatan and the other guys, the Agudah was not of one opinion one way or the other.