How did Germany manage to be in a surplus and become one of the most influential powers after WWII and especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The progression seems to have occurred exponentially even though they had to pay for reparations, were divided into East and West, and so on to become one of the largest players in Europe and the European Union.
In brief, maybe someone with more knowledge can get into the details, Germany replaced the old with the new.
So after the war their economy was blown to shits. They had a bunch of their stuff taken away from them by the other powers leaving them with zip. What did they have to do after being left with nothing? They had to rebuild. They got a bunch of loans from America with the promise to rebuild and stabilize the economy.
Much like what the Japanese did, when Germany rebuilt their industries and economies, they rebuilt it with the latest and most advanced technology that was available. This would heavily improve their output getting them out of the rut.
say in America they wanted to get rid of all their old industry and replace it with the newer more advanced; it would cost more than profitable to get rid of it and then replace it. Germany, however, was put in a position of just having to upgrade.
Germany always seems to come-back when they hit a dry run economically. Proceeding WWI when they were limited to 100,000 member military, they focused a bunch on advancing technologies for motor vehicles selling over seas thus making them a killing. Unlike the other nations having to spend billions on military every year, Germany was limited with their military placing their funds on advancing technology. (goes to show that maybe we'd have a more Utopian society if we didn't have so much military funding globally :|)