It's really not that odd. It's weird that Germany hasn't had a major military for any length of time. The only reason it could have been that way is because the political situation after WWII and the US's continued presence in Europe without the intent of conquest there. America's use of soft power to offset worries about hard power after WWII, especially in Germany, Japan and Korea is a phenomenally weird thing. It's even weirder that we have done actual nation building and not set up puppet governments in those places if you look at it through a historical lens.
Germany is returning to normal. This is the end of an anomaly, not the beginning of one.
It’s not strange at all that Germany didn’t have a strong military presence. They started WWII, Nazis and everything.
You need to understand that Germany, contrary to most countries including the US, have acknowledged their wrong doings, teach them 85+ years later to every child in school and are still of the mindset that they cannot be seen as aggressive on the geopolitical stage.
Germans show their flags under one condition in public and this is every four years when a football worldcup is taken place. That is it.
Otherwise there are no flags around. Can you Image that there are just no German flags in Munich when you walk around. None.
This is the mindset drilled into people that Germans not need be nationalistic and with that don’t have nuclear weapons, no big army, they abandoned mandatory military service.
This is not back to normal, as Germany doesn’t have a normal past. This is like Scholz said a new Time we are living now.