After the WW2 Germany (like most of Europe) was in ruins, which is... apart from the front line areas of the Western Front in WW1 the biggest and most significant difference. After WW1 the Germans believed they didn't really loose and felt the Versailles Treaty was unfair and France's revenge. They had to pay reparations and lost land but that's it. (Saying this in a very shortened and simplified way).

After WW2 there was nothing, no police, no military, no government. Germany was occupied and the occupation forces managed everything. They slowly allowed reorganisation on the lowest county levels, trying to provide enough food. (Which failed) The most important impact was, that the Western Allies only allowed a democratic government system, the reorganised the German states and gave it just enough room to develop it's own government but not without supervising everything.

Here stops the German history and you have to look on East Germany under Soviet control with a more or less dictatorial government and Western Germany with the Parliamentary system.

There was literally no family in Germany that didn't suffer from the war, most lost several relatives, the men were POWs and the rest fought for staying alive while rebuilding. We Germans were first pretty busy and by the time some people thought about revenge the reality had changed... we could either become part of the Western World, which means making peace with France or we would risk being alone in between the frontlines of the cold war.

Germany is a founding member of the predecessor of what we call the EU today, Germany, France and the BeNeLux (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg) agreed on a mutual control on heavy industries, so that non of those countries could create new weapons again.

Another reason for the change in most Germans was, that the economy in Europe literally skyrocketed with the beginning of the Korean war. The world needed goods and weapons and Germany's factories had the capacities free to make both. Germans became suddenly had more and more money, the could afford a car, a house and at some point vacations. Why should anyone ever risk this newly won wealth? For the first time in West German history the people had enough of everything and loosing your good live in war made no sense.

The German and to different levels most other Western Economies had a huge peace dividend. Germany had an Army yes, but by far not as big as before and not as expensive as before. NATO and especially the US, GB and France with their capability made sure it was a stalemate with the East. German chancellor could report about economic records, about social welfare and stuff, they didn't need an realistic enemy to get the people behind them.

Eastern Germany is a whole other story and by far less 'successful' in economic ways. East Germany was highly dependend on the Soviet Union and was literally a huge military camp for the Red Army making sure things go the way the Soviets desired it. Compared to other Eastern Countries the GDR (German Democratic Republic) had a developed economy but far from Western European standards.

Speaking mentalitywise, the defeat in WW1 and WW2 were completely different.

In WW1 the German people did not see themselves as defeated in the field, their country was still more or less intact (aside from famine and economic problems) and there were still more than enough men willing to fight in principle. It's just that the leadership finally accepted the reality of the situation and sued for peace, probably not enitrely knowing what a harsh treaty is coming onto them.

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After WW2 the situation was wholly different. The whole country lay in ruins, almost all young men were either dead, POWs or still far away. The state institutions practically stopped existing, the ocupation by the allies was total and survival not guaranteed. The western allies knew, they would need a German state in the developing conflict with the SU, so they didn't completely dissolve Germany, but for the common person, the Reich was basically dissolved. From 1945 to 1949 you can somewhat speak of a stateless existance of the German people.

The defeat was total, the reality of the holocaust such a shock and the need for plain survival so imminent, that no one could spare a thought on revenge or a future war. Moreover, the denazification in Germany, which was ordered by the allies, also showed it's effects. To a certain extent, everyone can be a pragmatist and so a lot of the supporters of the former regime just changed colours and started to work for the democratic Germany.

Though one shouldn't think that the inside of the German's minds did change in just four years. The Germans became democrats out of pragmatism and the need to survive and elected figureheads who really were democrats. But in the fiftys and sixtys people still had a lot of the old mentality in them. The difference was, that the new Federal Republic was much more stable than the Weimar Republic, economically, institutionally and politically.

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By the 1970s than the new generations more or less were different Germans than their parents.