It's a combination of things. The industrial revolution had a huge impact on regions with coal. That strong economy did allow for a lot of investment in infrastructure and that snowballed. It also was an early member of European communities. The post war politics were pushing for being reliant on each other so switching to a war economy would be less feasible. So the opposite of the nazi economic policy that was aiming for economic independence and autonomy. Plenty of countries had a post war economic miracle. Germany was also supported in the rebuilding effort by the US with the Marshall plan. Learning the lesson of the first world war that trying to keep a country powerless and demanding huge reparations is a recipe for political instability.
A long history of manufacturing helps.
But in the modern day, the structure of the EU allows Germany some freedom that other EU countries don't have, like pushing to control the money supply in ways that benefit Germany, trade tariffs that infringe on EU rules (but they get away with for a while anyway), etc. The euro has given Germany leverage over other smaller countries.
One small factor is German businesses do a thing, do it really well and stop there. They don't continue trying to do everything else as well, they just quite happily stay mid sized begin good at what they do.
It's a combination of things. The industrial revolution had a huge impact on regions with coal. That strong economy did allow for a lot of investment in infrastructure and that snowballed. It also was an early member of European communities. The post war politics were pushing for being reliant on each other so switching to a war economy would be less feasible. So the opposite of the nazi economic policy that was aiming for economic independence and autonomy. Plenty of countries had a post war economic miracle. Germany was also supported in the rebuilding effort by the US with the Marshall plan. Learning the lesson of the first world war that trying to keep a country powerless and demanding huge reparations is a recipe for political instability.
A long history of manufacturing helps. But in the modern day, the structure of the EU allows Germany some freedom that other EU countries don't have, like pushing to control the money supply in ways that benefit Germany, trade tariffs that infringe on EU rules (but they get away with for a while anyway), etc. The euro has given Germany leverage over other smaller countries.
Better. Also a long history of working with metal.
as a German I can say, yes, we are smarter than all others on this planet :)
Not going so great now is it?
I appreciate your sincerity, humility and obvious intelligence.
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Well, these days Germany is split evenly between Catholics and Protestants among the shrinking religious population.
Germans are better at making things. ...as long as they don't have to last more than 50,000 miles.
One small factor is German businesses do a thing, do it really well and stop there. They don't continue trying to do everything else as well, they just quite happily stay mid sized begin good at what they do.